


The Tunnel of Fear

by Tempest_Wind



Series: A Return, A Trap, Another Fall [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Reichenbach, Series 3 Speculation, Sherlock - Freeform, Sherlock series 3, The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez, The Valley of Fear, sherlock bbc - Freeform, speculative series 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:08:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tempest_Wind/pseuds/Tempest_Wind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's life takes on a new "normal" when he begins assisting the police, until old mysteries begin to unravel. Moriarty's lingering shadow steps out into the light and Sherlock investigates his way into a trap. Heroes become villains and friends become enemies as Sherlock's world changes forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final part to my series 3 speculation trilogy. Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading. This has been a marvelous two years.

Sherlock trailed a gloved hand along the fake wooden desk that sat in the front of the classroom.

“I'm the killer,” he said, raising his head to Lestrade. “You’re the victim.” Lestrade held his breath and nodded, while the Chief of Police crossed his arms and squinted.

Sherlock rattled the evidence bag before opening it. He deposited a boning knife, a key and a crumpled napkin onto the teacher’s desk, then stopped and rearranged the order. 

“Anna stood over the desk first, struggling with the key like this. The lock was built into this desk cabinet incorrectly. If you'll have a closer look, you'll find the key needs to be inserted upside-down. At the time, she didn't know,” Sherlock explained, leaning over the desk.

“She stooped down to get a better view of it.” He went to his knees. "She pulled out her glasses case to don a pair of garish, glitter-coated glasses. The lens pops out, as it's bound to do with a pair that's been dropped so often."

Lestrade offered the Chief the lens with sparing flecks of gold-colored glitter on it. 

"You can tell it's been dropped by the spider web cracks along the pointed edge. Barely visible, they tell the story of carelessness. Buyer's remorse, didn't give her the image of youthfulness she desired, but she couldn't afford another pair."

Chief Murdock scowled as he held the lens under the fluorescent lights.

"That’s when Dr. Smith returned to his classroom," Sherlock went on. "He was expecting Anna in his office, had put a sign up on the board for anyone to discuss their grades, and Anna promised him the ten-fifteen slot."

Lestrade, holding the bag of photographs John took months ago, offered a photograph of the whiteboard to Chief Murdock. The message barely said, “Meet me ___ to discuss ____.” He then pulled out a register sheet with the name "Anna Grekov" at the marked time.

Chief Murdock pushed the picture away. “How’d she have the key though?”

“I’m getting to that,” Sherlock muttered. “Lestrade, go to the door as if you’re just walking through. Anna had her eyes on the desk, her back to the door. It's half-ten on a Thursday, so there were students making noise in the classroom next door. She stopped listening to the chatter in order to concentrate on the lock.”

“What’s she want in the desk, anyway?” Chief demanded.

“It’s where Dr. Smith keeps his computer.” Sherlock’s response was met with silence. “Kent University teachers are meant to keep their grades on the school’s database. It says so on the website. They can only be edited from the correct username, Password, and IP address. She had his username and was hoping to figure out his password.

“Dr. Smith saw her trying to open his desk. He came up behind her and took her by the shoulders, surprising her.”

Lestrade followed through with Sherlock's directions. Sherlock grabbed the knife and turned on the detective, bringing it out so the point sat next to Lestrade’s throat.

“Hold it,” Chief said. Lestrade cupped his own neck and caught his breath. “Why’s she got a knife?”

“It’s _his_ knife,” Sherlock said.

" _Jesus Christ_ , Sherlock," Lestrade hissed the words through his tight throat.

Sherlock sat the knife on his hand and brought it over to the Chief. “Smell it.”

Resentful, Chief Murdock hovered over it before he sniffed. “I know the smell. Dried blood.”

Sherlock raised a twitching eyebrow at Lestrade, who was coughing quietly to himself.

“What _else_ does it smell of?” Sherlock insisted.

Chief shook his head. Sherlock went back to the table and brought over the napkin. “Smell this.”

"Mr. Holmes, you're wasting my time--"

"Sir," the word sounded foreign from Lestrade's lips. "Please humour him."

Chief Murdock looked like he'd sooner bite the hand offered to him than sniff the napkin, but he complied. “What, pears?”

“Apple. The knife, the napkin, both smell of apple. Dr. Smith enjoyed eating apples daily, but declined to eat the skin. He’d sit at his desk, peeling the apples with this boning knife.”

“It’s not a particularly sharp knife,” Lestrade started. "How does it kill a grown man?"

“She’s panicked, worried about her grades. She’s certain she’ll get caught, get expelled. But she grew distracted by the key and forgot to listen for the footsteps. Now someone’s behind her, grabbing her. She can’t afford to get caught now. She’s terrified and desperate and blindly stabs. That gives her the strength to break the skin of his windpipe. The tip of the knife is still quite sharp, unused as he skinned the apples from the side-angle. She forced the blade into his neck, and the flimsy tip broke off,” Sherlock said, resuming his spot behind the teacher’s desk.

He put the dull end of the knife next to Lestrade’s throat.

“Can you _not_ do that?” Lestrade growled.

“She realized that her victim was her teacher and froze, didn't scream."

"Why didn't she scream?" the Chief interrupted Sherlock's flow.

"Shock perhaps?" Lestrade suggested.

"Shock at the impact, but not at the action that caused it? No. Anna's been a victim. Wasn't able to defend herself, haunted by nightmares, thinking constantly about how she wouldn't let it happen again. She thought of stabbing her attacker so many times that her body and mind became accustomed to the idea.

"She never meant for the target to be her teacher. She dropped the murder weapon, leaving that and the key behind. But she remembered her glasses case. The only bit of it she neglected was the lens that fell out.”

“The biggest problem with your idea," Chief Murdock began, "is the key and the desk don't have the same prints as the lens."

“Of course not. She may have been failing European History, but she’s no fool. Woman in her mid-forties, watches a lot of crime dramas. She wore leather gloves the entire time.”

Chief Murdock seemed to consider this. Lestrade shrugged and pushed the knife further away.

“The victim lay on the floor.” Sherlock paused as Lestrade looked around.

“I said he lay on the floor.”

“You can’t really mean-“ Lestrade began. “I’m wearing nice slacks for a change.”

Sherlock didn’t change expressions. 

“Fine.”

Sherlock stood over Lestrade. “The tip of the knife is lodged in his throat, his windpipe is torn open. He tries to call for help, but can’t. He struggles for air. The pain is intolerable. Dr. Smith blacks out, falls into a coma, and passes away before the paramedics finally get to him.

“Anna, meanwhile, quits school due to ‘personal reasons.’ The only identifying evidence is that glasses lens, but it's not enough to book her by until now.”

“It gives her a motive,” Lestrade said. “I think it holds up.”

Chief Murdock shook his head. “You still haven’t explained the key.”

“Oh, good, you haven’t forgotten,” Sherlock said. Lestrade jabbed the consulting detective with his elbow. 

“Try and act with some semblance of respect,” Lestrade hissed as he moved to his feet. He delicately brushed the dust from his slacks. “He’s my boss.”

Sherlock cleared his throat. “Of course she had the key because she wasn’t acting alone. Dr. Coram, Anna’s professor of Geography, obtained the key for her.”

"Yeah, all right." The sarcasm dripped from Chief Murdock's mouth, as Sherlock's credibility shrunk.

“Didn’t you know? They were having an affair.”

Chief's eyes dulled and he lost that glimmer of interest. "Now you're making things up."

"Tell me how a woman of below average marks who is failing European History maintains the highest grades in her Geography class." Sherlock lips peeled back in a sneer. "Is it her incredible mapping prowess? Or has she earned her grade through other means?"

"Dr. Coram is liked by the whole department," Lestrade said. "Why would he set up Dr. Smith to die?"

"Have you been listening?" Sherlock growled. "Nobody set him up to die except Dr. Smith himself, by leaving out his knife and then sneaking up on a desperate student." He grabbed the knife once more and twirled it between his fingers. "Dr. Coram gave Anna the capabilities and tools to change her grades and save her school career. No one expected a body." 

He slammed the flat of the blade down on the desk and moved to the door. "I trust I've made my point."

Lestrade and Chief Murdock watched the back of his sweeping coat fade around a corner and down the hall. The two looked at the pile of evidence on the desk. Murdock made a motion with his hands and Lestrade set about cleaning everything up.

"He's difficult. Doesn't care for manners. But he's good," Lestrade tried to keep a level of respect for his commanding officer.

"It's guesswork. Hardly enough to go by," the Chief growled.

"Maybe it's guessing. I'm not saying his methods aren't strange. But he's right. He's always right."

The bespectacled Chief crossed his arms and stood in silence. 

Lestrade felt the battle slide out of his favor. A good detective was fired for getting Sherlock's help. Lestrade wondered if he would receive the same fate, but then...

"I'll let you call this Anna Grekov in for questioning. If her story pans out, you have permission to detain Dr. Coram as well."

Lestrade let out a deep, shaking breath. "Thank you, sir."

"I'm going back to the office. Send Sherlock in to speak to me and don't let him near the suspect, understand?"

The Detective Inspector tried not to dwell on what this meant. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

\--

Sherlock's hand was tense, curled to nearly a fist as he waited in the passenger seat of Lestrade's car. He rubbed the palm with his thumb and attempted to stretch it, despite shooting pain. He closed his eyes to block the ache.

_"Sherlock Holmes," said a voice like an untuned harpsichord: flat and gratingly loud._

Sherlock winced and tried to blink it away. He took a deep breath.

_"Sherlock Holmes is a murderer." The air of the court room had a gray sheen as light seeped in through ancient windows. "He killed Richard Brook, a man loved by many for his children's programme. On the roof of St. Bartholomew’s hospital, he shot Richard Brook in the head. But first he dragged a false confession from that poor man's mouth."_

_The prosectuor stopped in the middle of his opening speech to face the members of the jury._

_"At the end of this case, you will have no doubt who the real criminal is."_

The entire car shook as Lestrade threw himself into it. He flashed Sherlock an uneasy smile, heavy with words he wasn't ready to speak and an undercurrent of excitement, as he put the car into drive. He fiddled with the radio and tapped his way to the parking garage of New Scotland Yard by ten.

"Alright, my boss wants to speak to you alone," Lestrade said, guiding Sherlock to the elevator. "I know it's not in your nature, but please at least pretend you respect him a little. He's giving you a chance."

On the fifth floor, he led Sherlock down the hall to Chief Murdock's office, and just as quickly abandoned Sherlock. The consulting detective looked around the sparse office and took a seat on the only available chair.

“We’re investigating the evidence you offered. But for the time being, I’m sticking you to my original plan,” Chief Murdock said from the comfort of his broad chair, like a king on his throne.

The Chief folded his hands in front of himself looked down on Sherlock. Sherlock was only made shorter due to the lowered height of the guest chair -- the seat adjustment had been broken, which is specifically why Chief Murdock kept it in his office. A king enjoyed looking down on his subjects.

“You’ll be working in the catacombs.”

“Catacombs?” Sherlock squinted and his lips tensed around an unspoken question of the Chief's sanity.

“Here’s your keycard.” Chief held out the old, misused thing as though it were contagious. The little plastic card was broken around the edges, with traces of ketchup and old stickers improperly peeled off.

“It lets you access this floor, which is going to be your first and last stop every day. You sign in at Lestrade’s desk and then you ride the elevator down to the catacombs.”

“You still haven’t explained why the police station has catacombs,” Sherlock growled and took the broken key card.

“You say you’re a genius,” Chief began. “I think you’ll figure it out.”

They made their way to the elevators. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the faint pulse of a headache.

_"That Holmes fellow thinks he's a genius_ ," _Chief Murdock said on the stand. His beady eyes were on Baldwin, the Prosecutor, but he kept tapping a finger in the direction of the defense._

_Sherlock noticed how the Chief was on the verge of developing yet another chin, how the veins by his temples were more visible from the incredible red coloring of his face. Sweating, and it was chilly in the court room. Heart condition. Delightful._

_"He's dangerous. I know his type," Murdock said. "Egotistical. Think they're above the law. Next they go out committing crimes."_

_"You think he began with murder?" Baldwin asked, pacing around the pew like a caged animal. He was shaking, desperate to make this work. Wasn't making enough money, Sherlock noted. His practice was on the verge of closing. This court case had to make him famous or he'd have to leave the business._

_"No, no," Murdock said. "Been committing crimes a long time. We're reopening the case on the kidnapping, child endangerment from two years ago.”_

_Judge McMurdo held up his hand. "Nothing pertaining to other cases, please," he announced through a shrill but weighty voice. "Have that stricken from the records." The judge was a quiet man with quiet hobbies. A regular at the Diogenes Club. Knows Mycroft personally. Small wonder, for small favors._

_“Well, I don’t trust this Sherlock Holmes,” Murdock amended. “Wouldn’t ever trust him, if I were you.”_

The catacombs were, unsurprisingly, the darkened cellar of New Scotland Yard. Dim fluorescent lights gave way to rows of tall filing cabinets that stretched endlessly into the darkness.

The area stunk of dust, rusting metal and the damp drip of mould.

“Catacombs... But where’s the body?” Sherlock mused as they stepped out of the elevator.

“You’re the body,” the Chief said.

“Is that a threat?”

“Not yet, it’s not. ’Catacombs’ is just what the interns call it,” Chief Murdock said. “You’re meant to organize and scan each of these cold cases.”

“All of these are cold cases?" Sherlock approached the first filing cabinet, the top row of which offered "AAA-AAB." "Working hard, or hardly working?”

The Chief of Police ground his teeth together where a cigar used to sit before he went to nicotine gum. He had a bulging collection of gum fresh in its wrapper in his right pocket, by his passcard. He also kept a collection of chewed gum attached to the underside of his desk. “You’ll learn to like the catacombs. You’re gonna be here every day.”

“Here I am, one of the most brilliant minds of our time, and you’re having me scan paperwork. I’ve solved more crimes than you can doubtlessly count. I’ve singlehandedly built up a positive reputation for your bumbling detectives.”

“You’re a show-off. You're not a detective, but you think you're superior to everyone here. And I think you're a fake.”

“And you’re taking bribes,” Sherlock said.

The Chief wasn’t quick enough to respond, so Sherlock went on.

“You were bullied growing up. Oh, not by your peers. Dear sweet Mummy, rest her soul? Yes, apparently. She used to bully you: call you stupid, fat, useless. You set out to prove her wrong and along the way you became fatter and stupider. You tried surrounding yourself with people of lesser intelligence, but any time a modicum of intellect bled through their bland exteriors, you beat it out of them by threatening them or firing them. That's why you don't have any competent detectives. You’ve become the bully and now you live in regret, wishing you could take back every nasty thing you thought about your Mummy, wishing she was here because now you’ve earned her criticism.”

Chief Murdock’s face grew redder as Sherlock spoke. His breathing became short, uneven. Sherlock stopped and the Chief summoned an enormously deep breath.

\--

"God damn it, Sherlock. It hasn't even been two hours." Lestrade took his arm, escorting Sherlock to the parking garage.

"His short temper is a pity, really. It'll cause him that heart attack he's been medicating himself against."

Lestrade grit his teeth and threw open the driver's side door to his car.

Sherlock tried the passenger’s side handle and found it locked. "Are you going to let me in, or make me stand here?"

"I could make you walk home, if I wanted," Lestrade said, rolling down the window. "You got to promise me to behave."

Sherlock's eyebrows dipped together. "I don't see how any of this is my fault."

"You never do. That leaves me to clean up the mess. You run your mouth at my boss, he'll make your life hell and then he'll make my life hell for suggesting you help on cases."

"I'll have you know he started it."

"I don't care. You gotta promise you'll behave or I'll make you walk. And right now, I'm tempted to run you over with my car."

"Fine, all right. Happy now?" The door unlocked, so Sherlock took it as a sign to climb inside.

Sherlock clipped his buckle and Lestrade fell on the accelerator as if his foot were made of stone. Barely recovered from the whiplash and with an enormous headache on the way, Sherlock replied with a glare. 

Lestrade kept his gaze to the road and ground out: “John says hi.”

Sherlock dug the tips of his shoes into the carpet for some sense of stability against the DI’s reckless driving.

“You’ve spoken to him?” Sherlock said, cautious with his words.

“Today, yeah. First thing, after I turned you over to the Chief. We spoke on the phone - you heard of that? It’s when two people who want to talk to each other but can’t be in the same room have a conversation.” Lestrade said. 

“John knows I decline to return calls unless it’s for a case.”

“He’s been calling you since you got out of prison -- four days now. That’s enough time to learn how to pick up.”

Sherlock squinted at Lestrade, the way the DI’s hand tightened on the wheel, the pulse of a vein on the side of his temple, the way his teeth dug in together, not as though he were thinking, but as though he were holding back.

The London traffic slowed to a crawl. Lestrade kept within centimeters of the car in front of him, slamming on his breaks with unnecessary force.

“This is what actually has you angry. Why?" Sherlock asked. 

“Because…” Lestrade’s anger shifted to something sadder. “Because John's not. He told me he expects you not to return his calls, and that he’s just going to keep trying. And he's not angry and that makes me want to crack your head like an egg.”

Sherlock tried to stare ahead, but the glare of light reflecting from the car in front of them made his eyes ache. That, coupled with Lestrade's awful driving, made his stomach twist.

_"Sherlock Holmes is a great man," Lestrade said from the stand. His eyes kept darting to Chief Murdock and as he spoke, he rubbed his sweaty palms on his slacks. His lips trembled as he stared ahead._

_Prosecutor Baldwin offered the jury a smirk as if he knew better, before turning to Lestrade. "Not a detective, and you have him helping you?"_

_"He's an invaluable resource. He’s solved at least twenty cold cases. He... sees things normal people can't possibly notice: a bit of lint here, a scuff on a shoe."_

_"Sounds a bit far-fetched, for solving a murder. In fact, I have two signed affidavits from members of your team, saying that Sherlock Holmes' deduction methods go against any logic. Quote: 'It's as if he plans these crimes himself.'" Baldwin submitted the paperwork to the judge, who read it over._

_Sherlock felt John's eyes bore into the back of his head, but he didn't dare turn around to see the worry on the doctor' face._

“If John wants to speak to me, he knows how to get to the flat," Sherlock said.

Lestrade banged his hand on the steering wheel. “He can’t visit no one because of Mary.”

“The nurse can watch her."

“What nurse?” Lestrade shook his head. “He keeps firing them. He says they show up late or aren't attentive enough or aren't smart enough. He got rid of one for being too skinny - said she was a liability if she had to lift Mary.”

“If he wanted to change his situation, he would,” Sherlock said, squeezing his eyes shut as he felt a vein around his eye pulse.

“You’re not under house arrest. You need to go see him, Sherlock.”

“He’s married. He has his own life.”

“So you’re punishing him for moving on after you faked your death?”

Sherlock felt for the door handle. They were averaging 3 kilometers an hour. At a one-hundred and twenty degree angle, he could step out and retain most of his balance.

Lestrade shook his head. “You’ve changed, and it’s for the worse. You didn’t talk to him during the court case, you haven’t spoken to him since. What happened?” Lestrade finally, blessedly made the turn onto Baker Street. “I mean, the way you two used to be, it was like you were in love. Some weird soul-mate thing.”

“Nonsense. I’m getting out.” Sherlock opened the door and leaned against the car as he stepped out onto the pavement, wobbling a moment before catching his balance.

Lestrade leaned over to the passenger window. “He’s trying to make time for you. You ought to at least do the same.”

"Goodbye, detective," Sherlock turned his gaze ahead and winced as the throbbing pain spread from the back of his neck to his forehead like a great, heavy hand.

"Pick you up tomorrow," Lestrade said. Traffic was moving faster around him. "Don't be late."

"If you can convince your boss."

"Assume I can."

Sherlock waited until Lestrade pulled several paces ahead, before he tried walking towards 221B. The ache finally began to settle into something less painful, like the dull side of a knife pressed to an open injury. 

_"Detective Inspector Lestrade," Baldwin asked, lips trembling around a grin, "are you willing to stake your career to help this criminal?"_

_Lestrade's shoulders rolled into a hunch, through which he glared at the prosecutor._

_"He's no criminal," Lestrade said and looked to Sherlock. "I'm willing to bet more than my career."_

As Sherlock made his way up the stairs of the flat, the pain came back, more intense, more ravenous. He held his head and froze on the fourth step. 

_“Tell me about your investigation of this case,” Defense Attorney Douglas said._

_Lestrade shook his head. “It wasn’t a normal investigation by any means. I didn’t do most of the work. There’s this group – this ‘Believe in Sherlock Holmes’ group.”_

_The teens and twentysomethings standing along the walls of the court room, all bearing “I believe in Sherlock Holmes” t-shirts, made an uncomfortable, giggling sound. Judge McMurdo raised his head at them and they fell silent._

_Lestrade had to fight back a grin, and he nodded to a few of them. “A bunch of kids with computers. They were the ones who did the real investigating: tracking down all fifteen copies of the tapes of Richard Brook’s show. Did you know the executive who claimed he aired that show was found guilty of fraud last year?”_

_Douglas’s step brightened as he approached Lestrade. “And do you think they can debunk every bit of Richard Brook’s story.”_

_Lestrade’s lips broke into a grin. “They can do more than that, and explain it better than me. Ask them yourself.”_

Sherlock collapsed onto the couch and dug his head back against the arm. The throbbing spread from the base of Sherlock’s cranium to the edge of his right temple. Diagnosis: cluster headache. Necessity to medicate: 96%. Chances of OTC medication effectiveness: 23%.

Vision down 30%. Tactile reaction time down 26%.

Hearing at a paltry 83%. 

He let his brain activity slowly begin to diminish. He paid less attention to the laugh track emanating from Mrs. Hudson’s ancient television downstairs. He put less focus on the dusty smell of lingering perfume from when Mrs. Hudson popped upstairs to drop off the post at half nine. Perfume. Why perfume? Because she was planning to have Peter over that morning. 

But why were there no signs of a guest?

“Serves you right, you rotter!” Mrs. Hudson hollered at the telly.

Ah, he’d cancelled on her.

Sherlock went back to relaxing his hearing and he felt himself begin to slip out of consciousness.

Then, _RIIIIIIING_.

Sherlock cracked one eye open and stared at the piercing blue light of his mobile. John, first time that day. Fifth time in general. Sherlock could let this one slip into voicemail, like he did with the other calls. It’d take more than a week for John to fill his message box.

He thought of Lestrade and how furious the DI was. How much more of the silent treatment could John take before he took offense? Before his calls slowed from daily to weekly, to never again. John’s military background made him all the more determined, but his own sensitive emotions made him vulnerable.

Third ring. Sherlock snatched up the phone. “John.”

There was a moment’s hesitation on John’s end. A caught breath, and then a cleared throat. “I, erm, was expecting the voicemail.”

“I’ve been busy,” Sherlock said. “And Mrs. Hudson keeps trying to converse with me.”

“I know how much you hate idle chatting,” John said with a chuckle. “I won’t keep you. I just want to know…. how life is, I suppose.”

Sherlock squinted at the ceiling and traced the suffering patchwork. The headache was a buzz at the back of his mind: a lion waiting to roar. “So much for avoiding idle chatter. Life is likely to give me a cold at any moment, if Mrs. Hudson doesn’t hire a proper handyman.”

“Not fond of Peter either, I take it?”

Sherlock curled onto his side and winced as his headache resurged, along with a ringing in his right ear. “I feel little in the way of like or dislike towards him. If he’s serious about marrying her, he should hurry up and get on it. They certainly aren’t getting younger."

“That’s, well, yes, that’s true.”

"Also he’s terrible at making repairs. The draft is awful."

John gave a stifled chuckle with the sound of quickened breathing. "I can only imagine."

Sherlock squinted at his phone. “Why aren’t you in the house? Your walking pace is faster than a casual stroll.”

"You can hear that? Erm, the nurse is with Mary and I'm... out."

"Not your decision, by the tightness of your voice." Sherlock's lips twitched into a smirk.

"Yes, well, I... was told to get some fresh air or else Mary would have the next nurse throw me out a window."

“Planning to fire this nurse as well?” Sherlock asked.

“It’s not -- they need to arrive on time and take care of her. I’m not asking for much.” Frustration, annoyance, and arrogance as well.

“You let go of the last one because she looked thin.”

"You can tell by my breathing?" 

“You’re sending away the nurses because you don’t believe anyone can care for Mary as well as you.”

“I don’t… okay. Yes. Alright? Yes. You’re right. You’re always right. But it’s better this way." John took a deep breath. "I hear you got sent home from work early."

“It’s not work, John. It’s probation.”

“That’s what most people call their jobs,” John said. “Besides, it’s not a bad probation. Not for fraud, anyway. You’re working with the police.”

“Yes, doing their filing and scanning paperwork for cold cases older than I am for the next eighteen months. It’s demeaning.”

“Any sort of normal work is demeaning to you. At least it's not picking up rubbish at the side of motorways.”

“And the Chief of Police is looking for an excuse to report me as 'violating my parole.' He's been out to get me since before I started.” Sherlock tugged his coat up over his free ear.

“You _did_ mention - in court - how you could do his job more accurately with your eyes closed, ears plugged, and both hands tied behind your back, right in front of him.”

“They asked me to tell the 'whole truth.'”

“He was on the witness stand!” After his outburst, John quickly muttered an apology to a passerby. A woman, according to the tone of John’s voice - the hushed politeness of a would-be gentleman. Not quick enough to be a bicyclist, but Sherlock could hear the clatter of wheels. A woman with a stroller perhaps?

“Besides,” John continued, whispering, “they meant you answering questions. Not making snide comments about the witness.”

“Not much of a witness,” Sherlock muttered. “He wasn’t there for anything but my arrest.”

“I’m stunned he fired Gregson though.”

“Who?”

John made an irritated noise. “DI you helped a couple of times. We really should have kept in better contact with these people.” John hesitated. “Or, I should have.”

“You had a busy life.”

“Not that busy. Not since you…” A car horn blared. “Yes! Sorry, yes.”

“Hurry up and cross the street, John.”

“I was, erm… I was thinking that-yes, yes, good, yes.” Another car beeped. “I was thinking about the blogging.”

“You’re thinking too much.”

“You a comedian now?" The cars fell silent as John found his way safely to the other side of the pavement. "Anyway, I was thinking that if you’re… I mean, if you’re in need of a blogger again, I’d…”

“Follow me up the mountains of Norway?”

“Well, no.”

“We’ll be in touch.”

Sherlock heard the creak as John gripped his phone a little too tightly. “I’m serious, Sherlock.”

Sherlock took a deep breath and roved his gaze away from the cracked plaster and peeling wallpaper. “I think my days of adventuring are behind me, yes? I’m on probation…”

“That’s not a death sentence.”

“You’re married.”

“That isn’t a death sentence either.”

“And I simply prefer keeping to myself these days.”

John’s breathing faltered. “All right. Well, yes. I mean, that's... all right.”

“You said that already.”

“I know - I… That’s probably for the best.”

Searing pain lit the skin of the right side of Sherlock's face. He sat up, lowering his head into his free hand as he rubbed his aching temple.

"How're the headaches?" John asked and Sherlock wondered momentarily about this man's own deductive powers. "Molly told me."

"Molly?" Sherlock didn't remember telling her. "Is nothing a secret from Mycroft?"

"I do wonder, sometimes. Are you at least taking something for the headaches?"

"Occasionally. Nothing over-the-counter works."

John made an impatient sound in his throat. "You have to medicate them at the first symptom, not when the pain becomes intolerable. They're probably stress-related."

"Your concern is noted," Sherlock said through gritted teeth, "but I am never so overcome with stress that it manifests physical symptoms. If you have nothing else of merit to share, I'll hang up the phone."

"I--" John struggled. "Fine. Rest well."

Sherlock clicked the "end" button and continued holding the burning side of his face. He slid the mobile under a couch pillow and listened to his heart beat, like heavy footsteps. He closed his eyes after he took note that the cobweb in the corner behind the television had a new tenant.

_"You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out."_

Sherlock's eyes flew open.

_"So Sally can wait."_

It was muffled, like a whispered message. He pulled out his phone and stared at the shining display. 

The night when police lights shone blue and red outside the abandoned construction site, an injured Sebastian Morstan was on his knees as Lestrade slipped the handcuffs on Sherlock. That song, muffled then as well, reached Sherlock's ears and his insides convulsed, the searing understanding blinding his vision white-hot.

Hatred, in that moment. And excitement. Absolute thrill filled him then as it did now, and the pounding in his head became like the beat of a drum.

_"She knows it's too lat--"_

"Good of you to call," Sherlock murmured into the phone.

A pause. Then, "Yeah, I thought it was pretty good of me, too," Lestrade said.

Sherlock squinted at his mobile and checked the number. No caller ID. The profile had been erased.

"I got a text: you called John. You did good there," Lestrade carried on.

Sherlock's mind was running into overdrive. " No one's had this phone to erase my contacts. I bought it in Norway," he muttered to himself as Lestrade continued talking.

"Sorted things out with the Chief and he says you're on for tomorrow."

"This isn’t even my ringtone.”

"He says if you screw this one up, you won't get another chance," Lestrade said. "I just want to go over some basic--"

"Yes, yes, yes, all right. Tomorrow, yes." The phone was always in his pocket, always on his person except when he was sleeping. Sleeping...

"Sherlock, seriously."

"Tomorrow, Detective." He hung up and stared at the mobile a long moment.

Clutching it carefully, he brought it to his laptop, which sat on top of the dusty old laptop that remembered the times before Sherlock's final confrontation with Moriarty.

He opened the browser and typed in "You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out."

The lyrics for "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis populated the screen.

_"Slip inside the eye of your mind_

_Don't you know you might find_

_A better place to play_

_You said that you've never been_

_But all the things that you've seen_

_They slowly fade away"_

_"So I'll start a revolution from my bed_

_'cause you said the brains I had went to my head_

_Step outside, the summertime's in bloom_

_Stand up beside the fireplace_

_Take that look from off your face_

_You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out."_

_"And so Sally can wait_

_She knows it's too late as we're walking on by_

_Her soul slides away_

_But don't look back in anger_

_I heard you say."_

_"Take me to the place where you go_

_Where nobody knows if it's night or day_

_Please don't put your life in the hands_

_Of a rock and roll band_

_Who'll throw it all away."_

_"I'm gonna start a revolution from my bed_

_'cause you said the brains I had went to my head_

_Step outside, 'cause summertime's in bloom_

_Stand up beside the fireplace_

_Take that look from off your face_

_'cause you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out."_

_"So Sally can wait_

_She knows it's too late as she's walking on by_

_My soul slides away_

_But don't look back in anger_

_I heard you say."_

_"So Sally can wait_

_she knows it's too late as she's walking on by_

_My soul slides away_

_But don't look back in anger_

_Don't look back in anger_

_I heard you say_

_At least not today."_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: contains graphic depictions of violence. Reader discretion is advised.
> 
> Map of the Royal Botanical Gardens: http://www.kew.org/ucm/groups/public/documents/document/kppcont_062473.pdf

The headache drummed along his temporal lobe, hanging like a sheet of pain over his head. He spent an agonizing hour trying to lie still, but the itch of irritation sent him to his feet, pacing. Each time he tried to slow his natural processes, the onslaught of ache sent his senses into overdrive, detailing the floating pattern of wisps of dust, the curl at the corner of the carpet from a pointed-toe shoe, the way the phone cord sagged at a different angle proving that Mrs. Hudson had popped upstairs to make a call and was thus in his flat while he was out.

The paltry variety of medications Sherlock used had taken the edge off the metaphorical knife which, though blunt, continued stabbing his head with searing heat.

And there was the promise of a full day of delightful probation tomorrow. 

He dragged himself down the hall and collapsed into bed, fully-clothed. Despite his mental and physical exhaustion, he moved to his feet every fifteen minutes, pacing.

Sherlock knew that Chief Murdock would be eager to watch Sherlock make a mistake or show up late. His performance from this point forward would be his only saving grace. If he didn't impress, he was certainly going back to jail.

He wandered into the kitchen and examined his medical instruments. His gaze roved over the cabinets, when an idea sluggishly clicked.

He padded his way downstairs, through the hall, past the beaded entryway into Mrs. Hudson's kitchen. Top shelf, left corner-- the one with all the scratches on it from overuse -- he spotted a buffet of medications. Most were for minor aches and pains, but towards the left-hand side, he saw all the prescription sleeping pills.

He’d learned from week-long bouts of insomnia and the following desperation to sleep, that sleeping pills were not singularly effective enough to take him down. But when used in conjunction with one another…

He brought the armful of bottles upstairs and sat at his lab, formerly the kitchen table.

Benzodiazepine, chlordiazepoxide, alprazolam - no surprise there. He was impressed she had diazepam - Valium, as it was commonly called.

His goal was never to take a whole of each medication, which was a foolhardy exploit that sent him to the hospital in his more foolish youth. He took out his sharpest knife and cut the ends off of some of the pills. In his food processor, he grinded together carefully measured amounts of each drug. He added a bit of an antihistamine - _caution, may cause drowsiness_ \- to help prevent his body from overreacting.

Finally, he scooped some of the mix into a cup of water. The particles swirled and some sunk straight to the bottom. Stirring, he drank the awful-tasting concoction and quickly made his way towards his room as the world shifted to black.

Too far away, his alarm screeched. He struggled to pull himself out of a hazy depression. His arms ached. His stomach twisted. His back was on fire.

He lifted his burning head and cracked open an eye to realize he was on the floor.

\--

Donovan’s arms were leaden weights at her sides. Her eyes were bleary, unfocused, even as the alarm drilled into her ears.

She expected a migraine, but couldn’t remember drinking. She remembered waking up in the middle of the night. A light sleeper, she stirred at the slightest noises. And with a flat so close to train tracks, it was a constant battle to stay asleep.

In the night, when she jolted awake, her pulse pounded in her ears like a furious lover banging on the door. She remembered hearing breathing, and tried to reason it was her own. She held her breath and listened for any sound, any creak of the floorboards.

A long silence stretched. And then there was a creak, a shift of fabric, someone else's breathing. Her body tensed, prepared to incapacitate, prepared to claw and smack without stopping.

But then she couldn’t remember what happened next. 

Now her training kicked into gear. She stretched her exhausted arms up over her head, then down past her sides, to be certain she wasn’t bound. Her feet kicked freely, pushing off the covers. She forced herself to sit upright and visually take in every inch of her room.

The stack of bills still sat, undisturbed, atop her dresser. Her television glowed silently, trapped in the prerecorded program menu. Yesterday’s clothes were still scattered on the floor and the book she was currently in the middle of lay open on the floor on the wrong page.

No unfamiliar smells, though her nostrils ached. Her head had no softness or sharp injury as she felt along the skin, the tangled hair.

She took another look at her bedside table and stiffened.

An unfamiliar white flower with buds all along the vine sat on the stand. There was no note, no sign. It was too messy to be from a florist, but too unfamiliar to be local.

Donovan curled her toes beneath her and shifted to her knees. She moved slowly, sweeping the floor for her phone. Her eyes traced the area, searching for any wires, any footprints, any signs of oncoming danger.

She reviewed the list of people who had access to her flat, who had been in her flat in the past that the doorman would allow.

Her feet flattened onto the floor and she moved out of the room. 

Asbestos. Or Anthrax, another side of her brain suggested. The flower could have been laced with something.

In an unused box of hair highlighter sat two plastic gloves that would protect her hands. Using salad tongs, she lifted the flower and held her breath as she slid it gingerly into a Ziplock gallon bag.

She sealed it and dropped it on the floor. Her heart beat erratically as she slid off the gloves and sat on her bed to stare at the strange token.

“Stupid Anderson,” she muttered under her breath.

When she took a shower and dressed for work, she got furious with him. She considered dialing his number to shout at him, but he’d hang up. If she cornered him in person, he’d find no-where to hide.

\--

“What on earth do you need to talk to me in the catacombs for?” Anderson demanded as they stepped out of the elevator.

“I know what you did and I know what you’re thinking,” Donovan hissed. “But breaking into my flat is grounds for arrest.”

Sherlock had the drawer wide open as he studied the file of a young Jane Doe, five years old, found strangled, dead in a cooler. He was around the corner from the elevator, under a flickering lightbulb. No clear sight of him from the elevator. He held back from turning a page as he listened.

“'Breaking into--who would be stupid enough to break into your flat?" Anderson demanded as they hesitated by the ACA -- AFA section.

Her hand moved to clench her hip to avoid choking his stupid face. "You're so obvious. The flowers. The Shakespeare. If you think that'll get me on your good side, then you don’t know a damn thing about me after all.”

Anderson stared at her blankly. “When did Shakespeare come into this? I don’t even like Shakespeare. I haven’t read it since secondary school.”

"You're unbelievable." Donovan turned to walk away.

“Seriously? Actually, seriously, is this a joke or have you honestly gone mad?” Anderson began and grabbed her arm.

She slipped from his hold and jammed her fist against his neck, pinning him to a cabinet with a loud rattle. He stiffened and let go.

He kept his arms still at his sides, frozen. When she didn’t release him, he made choking sounds. She rolled her eyes and loosened her grip.

“Right,” he said, straightening himself and eyeing her.

“Who else would send me flowers?” she muttered.

“I don’t know, Greg maybe?” At his suggestion, Donovan raised an eyebrow. “I don’t do flowers. You know that I never, ever do flowers.”

Donovan’s shoulders clenched as she thought about the intruder. Did she try to fight him? Or did she dream this whole thing?

“I get that you’re furious with me, but it’s not my fault,” Anderson began. "I can’t make a decision like that. I can’t choose between you and my wife.”

Fire lit in Donovan's eyes. Her hand moved towards his neck and he barely ducked out of the way.

“ _Ex_ -wife, you selfish little bitch,” she growled at him.

"We're only separated!"

"And no, _your_ problem is you want us both. And you can’t always have everything your way, Simon.”

“I can't help how I feel," he shook his head. “I love you both. I wish I didn't.”

“You can't have everything. And you'd sooner take nothing than deal with making a decision.” She turned to walk away.

“Sally,” he started.

“Don’t.”

“I know I can’t get you to understand. I don’t even really understand, but just…” 

She moved rapidly to the elevator.

“Just tell me if you think you're in danger, all right?” he asked. “The flowers, the Shakespeare. If someone's hassling you, please let me know.”

Her voice went stony. “If I suspect I’m in any sort of danger, I’ll alert my direct supervisor. It’s up to Greg if he tells you as well.” She went to cross her arms, but jammed her thumb against the "Open Doors" button.

Anderson hesitated. “Are you holding the door for me?”

“The rose is on my desk. I need you to examine it and tell me where it’s from. Give me all the evidence you can.”

\--

"I don't want to HEAR it," Mary roared. Too weak to leave the bed and pinned down by various tubes and wires that led to different machines, she still managed to throw the alarm clock at John. It clattered to the floor in five pieces.

  
"Seriously!" John hollered back, for lack of a better phrase to fling at her. "You are so... unbelievably impossible."

 _"I'm_ impossible? Who keeps firing the damn nurses?"

"We need someone who's capable of caring after you." He edged closer towards her, his arm up for defense in case she found something else to lob at him.

" _I_ can take care of me!" She jabbed her thumb to her thin chest hard enough to make a _thump_ noise. "A feeding tube, John? You think I would actually agree to... to..." her words dissolved into a broken wail, like a child.

"You aren't holding down your food well."

"You'll put a hole in my stomach to pump me full of mash that I'll just throw up again?" She gripped the bedsheets and kicked at them with weak legs, her face streaked with tears. 

"Look at yourself! You're severely malnourished," he began, edging closer.

She found a pen and threw it at him. He ducked out of the way of it.

"I said no to the home dialysis machine, and you got one anyway. I didn't want the saline drip and the monitors, but look what I have hooked up around me. I said I wanted a nurse and you've fired every one of them." She made a motion like wringing his neck. "I will not ever, EVER consent to a feeding tube."

John's voice was tight in his throat. He didn't dare move any closer. "If we don't do this, you'll die."

"I _am_ dying, John!" She spread her arms over the messy bedsheets, her bony frame. "Take a good look, because this is what dying looks like."

He gritted his teeth. "No. Not yet."

"We're doing this _my_ way." She slammed a fist down on the sheets and it only made a soft _puff_ sound. "No feeding tube, no surgery. And get these stupid machines away from me." She tugged in earnest at the tubes and knocked over the stand which held the saline drip.

"Stop it, Mary." John caught the stand and set it carefully back. He checked the settings of the pump, as well as the catheter in her arm to make sure the tubing wasn't loose. "Of the two of us, I'm the doctor."

"And it's my body," her eyes had a fury in them he hadn't seen in weeks. "You are not doing this to me."

"Have you thought..." John started and had to stop because his throat, his chest, everything felt tight. He struggled to catch his breath, but worried he'd lose it with a harsh sob, that he barely held back.

"Have you considered how maybe," he began again, "it would affect _me_ if you died and I didn't do anything to try to save you?"

Mary's lips trembled as she closed her mouth. Tears welled and spilled down her cheeks. Her nose ran.

"Just.... think on it," he whispered and handed her a tissue before he left the room. 

\--

Sherlock had spent nearly a full day in the moudly catacombs, and already the dripping was driving him mad: loose fitting on a pipe. Plumbing, the sinks not the toilets, thank goodness. 

His only consolation was that Donovan and Anderson were apparently keen to jump to conclusions about absolutely everything, including one another. It made his arrest and subsequent court case seem more frustratingly senseless than outright bad-natured.

Though the slight tremble in Donovan's voice gave way to concern. Was it fear? Her emotions were difficult to pinpoint, given how ill-tempered and stoic she presented.

But she was more aggressive than usual today. Prepared to draw blood from a man she had certain attachments to. 

Sherlock made a snorting sound and flipped through his file. "Sentiment," he muttered. "It's ridiculous how--"

 _"Take me to the place where you go..."_ The tune echoed through the chamber, reverberating off the walls of filing cabinets, their metal interiors ringing with noise.

The file spilled from Sherlock's hand. 

_"...Where nobody knows if it's night or day._ " He traced his gloved fingers over the drawers, his gaze darting to the names on the plates and he listened past the thrum of his own quickening heartbeat for the source of the song.

 _"Please don't put your life in the hands..."_ He dashed his way around a corner of the maze of filing cabinets: E-section. 

_"...Of a rock 'n' roll band_..." Epa.... Epp... There -- Eps. Sherlock tugged open the rusty drawer and the giant metal cabinet shook like it was bound to fall.

 _"Who'll throw it all away."_ Epstein. Sherlock's fingers shook as he reached for the file. He stopped to take note of his own reactions. Adrenaline surged through him, a great tornado within, for the first time in over two years. So close...

He opened the file and the ringtone stopped. Brian Epstein, born 19 September, 1934. _The Beatle-making Prince of Pop_ , died 27 August, 1967, of a lethal dose of Carbitral combined with alcohol. The death was publicly ruled an accident, and yet here was his file, among the cold cases.

In the evidence bag sat the bottle of prescription pills, the empty bottles of alcohol, and an ill-placed mobile phone.

With his gloves on, Sherlock reached into the bag and pulled out the little black phone. It had scrapes along the right side, where it made impact with gravel two and a half years ago. Shelock opened the phone and the bright display stared back at him. 

It was Sherlock's phone, which he abandoned on the roof of St. Bart's hospital during his final confrontation with Moriarty. The phone contained Moriarty's confession, which was used in his court case mere weeks ago. And it was on.

Sherlock slid to the floor, crumpling his back against the cold steel. Laughter bubbled from the back of his throat, and shook its way to the tips of his fingers. His head sagged back against the cabinet, as he sat, trembling all over.

He clutched Brian Epstein's file to his chest and pulled up the "Calls Received" list. Blank except for the unknown number that dialed him just now.

He called that number and pressed the phone to his ear, coughing back a giggle.

A sharp noise echoed through the chamber. "We're sorry. The number you've tried cannot be reached..."

Sherlock hung up and pressed his head harder back against the cabinet. "You're good," he panted. "You're so very, very good..."

The contacts list was empty. He opened the casing to find the memory card was removed. It was a blank canvas, yet it was able to receive calls. Logically speaking, if the phone was able to receive calls, then it was able to place calls, and it was attached to a voice plan.

The only way to know for certain was to try a different phone number: one that would definitely work. The only one he knew by heart was John's number.

He dialed the familiar digits and waited.

The sharp sound echoed through the ear piece. "We're sorry. The number you've--"

Sherlock closed the phone and flew to his feet, pacing the damp, dimly lit room. John's phone. He couldn't connect to John's phone. Did that mean that this old mobile was unable to make outgoing calls? Or was John's phone compromised?

Sherlock's fingertips tingled as he pulled out his current mobile -- smartphone, Android, bought in Norway over two years ago -- and dialed John's number.

It rang once.... It rang twice...

Sherlock took a deep breath and was about to hang up the phone before that awful screech and bland message could reach his ears. But instead, he heard:

"What?"

Sherlock's gaze darted around the room before puzzlement shifted across his lips. "John?" he asked.

"I... yes," John muttered.

"You're tense."

"I know."

Sherlock stared at the old mobile in his hand as he contemplated it. No outgoing calls, but it was able to take incoming calls. This defied logic.

"Sorry, I--" John began.

"No, no, it's fine." Sherlock kept his voice bright, friendly. Concentrating on something bland would allow his mind to work through the clues without over-thinking them. "Has Mary had you thrown out the window yet?"

"Nearly..." John sighed. "I don't know. I just..."

Sherlock was on the verge of understanding something. But he couldn't quite see the big picture yet.

"D'you want to meet?" John asked. "I mean, I haven't seen you since the court case."

Sherlock struggled a moment. "I'm working, currently."

"I-- yes, all right. Erm, then when might be convenient for you?"

Sherlock turned the old phone over in his hands. "Tomorrow. After five.” As an afterthought, he added: “Invite Lestrade." 

"Tomorrow after five," John repeated back, relief flowing from his mouth. "That's, well, that's great."

"Meet me at the flat. I'll serve..." Sherlock shook his head and stuffed his old mobile in his pocket.

"Tea?" John suggested. "Ask Mrs. Hudson if she'd like to bake something. It's been ages since I've seen her as well."

“Baking?” Sherlock balked. “Do you intend to poison Lestrade?”

“Her cooking’s all right, even if her scones aren’t. It’s really pastries she’s terrible with.”

“You only encourage her by eating them,” Sherlock said.

“Hey, I’ve seen you eat them, too. Besides, maybe she’s gotten better. Maybe had some lessons. I don’t honestly know.”

“’Lessons’?” Sherlock scoffed. “What, to impress Peter?”

“People do stranger things for love. Anyway, tomorrow after five.” John hung up, leaving the dial tone buzzing in Sherlock’s ear. The consulting detective lost his train of thought regarding his old phone and a newly-hatched headache was peeking its ill-tempered head up.

\--

Donovan expected to see Anderson with a gas mask on, studying the flower under a microscope. Instead, he held it with gloved hands and examined it from a few angles.

"It could have Anthrax on it," she crossed her arms and fought the urge to grab the flower straight out of his stupid hands before he could hurt himself.

"It doesn't," he said with absolute certainty. "No residue. Hasn't even been injected with anything, though you'd have to be a nutter to chew on a rose from an anonymous boyfriend anyway."

"It's safe?" her shoulders tensed as more pieces refused to fit together. "Could I.... could I have bought it for myself and forgotten?"

Anderson made a negative sound in his broad nose. "Well, no. It's not a flower you pick up at the petrol station. This is the genus _Rosa chinesis_ , or China Rose. Rare breed. The white color makes it rarer. There's only strand of it in London, and that's in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Theirs are February blossoms, so they've only just begun to bloom." He toyed with the half-closed bulbs lower on the branch.

"You don't like flowers. How d'you know so much about them?"

"My daughter loves them. Took her to the Gardens last weekend. She had me read her the display, and then made me count every open bloom the damn showcase had. The amount of noise this place made over some stupid flowers... And their bloody trees."

Donovan took the rose from his hands and stared at the half-open petals. "Under the greenwood tree/who loves to lie with me... here shall he see/no enemy/but winter and rough weather..."

"What're you prattling on about?" Anderson demanded.

"I need to go check something." She brought the vine out the lab and straight to her desk. She shifted some papers and her coffee mug collection before she found her stack of evidence. There, in a plastic bag, sat that little Shakespeare poem, penned in a stranger's handwriting. She shifted through the case file she'd compiled.

"What's the name of it? Come on... Donovan..." she pulled out the information on the song "Under the Greenwood Tree" by Donovan. Her gaze moved to the top of the page, the title of the album and forgot to breathe.

"A Gift from a Rose to a Garden."

"Garden..." her voice was stuck in her throat. "The Royal Botanical Gardens."

Anderson was breathless as he tried to catch up to her. "Are you mad?" he demanded, which was his version of "are you okay?"

She rounded on him. "Is this your idea of a joke? Take your daughter to the Gardens, and steal me a souvenir like some sick freak?"

Anderson held up his hands. "I swear it's not from me."

"But this... all this has to do with the Gardens." Her eyes roved over the evidence pile. "I'm supposed to go to the Gardens."

Anderson reached for her arm, but she stepped out of his range. His hands curled into fists and he pinned them under his armpits. "Y-you're not going alone..."

"Of course I'm not going alone, you moron." She threw open the door to Lestrade's office and found it empty.

Anderson's voice was weaker, worried. "He left at five."

"I'm trying Carter, then. We'll need a team."

"T-team? What do you think is going to happen?" 

She squared her gaze on him. "I don't know and I'm not willing to risk anything."

\--

_Shelly Keenen, the 17-year-old leader of the Believe in Sherlock Holmes movement, sat on the stand. She traded in her “Believe in Sherlock Holmes” t-shirt from the first two days in favor of an ill-fitting button-down shirt and a skirt that came too low on the calf._

_“It took about a week, but we were able to determine the plot of land where Rich Brook’s grave was located,” Shelly said._

_“And what did you find when you were there?” the defense attorney asked, his voice soft and patient, weary after days of arguing._

_“That this grave actually belonged to Douglas Fairbank, who died in October, 1973. It was owned by Rich Brook’s estate, but another man was buried there a long time ago.”_

_“And what happened when you reported it to the police?”_

_“They exhumed the body and, while I don’t know much about decomposition, I was told that the body belonged to a man who died in the 1970’s.”_

_“And not Richard Brook,” the defense attorney said._

_“He didn’t decompose that fast. Several of the Sherlock Holmes movement’s members went to investigate the cemetery. They examined all the tombstones and found that none belonged to anyone by the name Richard Brook who died within the last ten years.”_

_“Could you have been mistaken?” the defense attorney asked. “Could he be in a different graveyard?”_

_“We looked into that. Cross-checked all our references. But these days, with so many databases on the web, we determined that this plot of land in this cemetery was bought March 15 th, 2012. It just happens that there was another body buried there in the 70’s, that’s still there.”_

_“What does this mean to you?”_

_“To me? Well, to me it means that somewhere, Richard Brook is still alive.”_

“Sherlock? You awake in there?” Lestrade’s voice woke Sherlock from his thoughts.

“Hm? Yes?” he blinked his way back into the sitting room in 221B, a mug of tea clutched in his hand.

“Thought you fell asleep on us,” Lestrade said.

“I was analyzing,” Sherlock said.

“What, your tea?” John asked, shifting through a few uncomfortable facial expressions. His eyes darted between Lestrade and Sherlock in rapid succession, as if he didn’t want to hold a stare with either one of them.

“And for ten minutes?” Lestrade pressed. “Don’t tell me you became a tea connoisseur in prison. Or even during your time in Norway.”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “Excellent coffee in Norway. But the tea there and in prison is rather the same.”

“Reminds me: when you said you were an explorer in Norway, I thought you seriously meant an explorer,” John said as his expression finally settled onto a crumpled smile. “Not a mountaineer.”

“It’s essentially the same idea: climbing to places few have been. Simply the word ‘explorer’ has an old-fashioned sound to it.”

“Like that one case,” Lestrade said around a mouthful of one of Mrs. Hudson’s tasteless scones that he apparently loved.

“The Hound of the Baskervilles,” John said. “Yeah, Sherlock, you remember how you took it because Henry saying the word ‘hound’ was so out of the ordinary?” 

Sherlock gave him a bland look. 

John shook his head as if shaking himself out of it. “No, of course you don’t. You don’t remember details of your cases.”

“Enormous brain of yours, and you don’t remember that case?” Lestrade said.

“Once a case is solved, I file it away in my-“

“Hard-drive,” John said. “Yes, I know.”

“I can summon the files when I need them. And certainly I remember the jellyfish DNA being used in the rabbit to make it glow, as well as the fear neurotoxin. But anything about a hound or the people involved is of no importance.”

“Two years and… some things really don’t change.” John’s body language spoke of exasperation held back and crammed in a tiny box.

“Everything changes,” Sherlock murmured, folding his hands in front of his face as his gaze flickered between the DI and the doctor.

Lestrade’s phone let out a piercing wail. He held up his hand and pressed his phone to his ear.

John turned back to Sherlock. “Not much has changed. You’re back to helping the police. I’m… available to help.”

Sherlock gritted his teeth. “If you think you’re fit to solve cases—“

Lestrade shushed them loudly.

Sherlock quieted to a whisper: “—after all this time, then—“

“Shut UP!” Lestrade hollered.

Sherlock snapped from his thoughts and studied the DI. Lestrade’s pupils were dilated. His skin took on a grey sheen before little droplets of sweat worked their way down from his eyebrows. He pressed his phone harder to his ear while his eyes scanned for invisible details, the habit of a man who’d done desk work for too long.

“Tell it to me,” Sherlock said. "Quickly. The human brain can only maintain so much information."

“No…. no, I want you to fucking find them,” Lestrade growled, darting into the hallway before he took the stairs down two at a time.

Sherlock followed straight after, with John on his heels. Lestrade started his car and Sherlock took the passenger’s seat. John hesitated before taking the back.

Lestrade turned on the siren.

“Your wife? No. Someone more official.” Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Has Mycroft gone missing? Amusing thought."

“It’s Donovan. The case I assigned her on, it’s - she knows better than to put herself in danger.”

John’s mobile started ringing. 

“Will you shut that bloody thing off?” Lestrade snapped as he switched gears to drive.

John pressed the phone to his ear. “Sorry, yes? I-“

Silence in the back seat. Sherlock whipped his head around to get a view. John’s face lost its color. His eyebrows hitched, but his mouth dragged out in a frown. His eyes bore into the back of Sherlock’s seat with an air of heavy concentration.

Bad news. Terrible news. John was fighting with himself on how to approach things. A crossroads. A decision.

John put his phone down. “I’m sorry, I-please pull over. I have to go.”

Lestrade tugged the steering wheel as Sherlock proclaimed: “It’s your wife.”

“She’s in hospital,” John said and Lestrade slowed the car just to a stop. “Stopped breathing. I’ll get a cab. I-“

“Go!” Lestrade shouted and picked up speed as soon as John was out of the car. He redoubled his effort, weaving around traffic, and got them to the Elizabeth Gate entrance to the Royal Botanical Gardens. 

The perimeter was surrounded by police cars and two ambulances, all with their lights shining. Several uniformed men stood around a barricade that was hastily put up.

“Status?” Lestrade demanded of the first officer.

"All four gates have teams securing entrances and exits, with ambulances standing by. ATB has retrieved three men from inside. Carter, Anderson and Donovan are believed down, but inside.ATB is working on sweeping for guns and bombs. We recommend waiting for the rest of the area to be cleared.”

“I’m going in.” He tugged off his coat as another officer handed him a bullet-proof vest. He waited to hear Sherlock tell him the likelihood of this being a trap.

Instead, Sherlock hummed under his breath.

Lestrade raised an eyebrow at him. “Now I don’t want you-“ he started.

“Going in, yes, I understand the danger of the situation,” Sherlock snapped and went back to humming.

Lestrade, not satisfied with that answer alone, turned to the nearest officer. "Don't let him out of your sight. I don't want him going in here unless I say so, understand?"

The officer nodded and opened the barricade. Lestrade pushed his way past the towering balustrades, two officers at his heels, with his gun clenched tightly away from his chest.

His walkie-talkie made crackling sounds like newspaper kindling: "Lion, Victoria and Elizabeth teams, come in. This is Brentford Gate team."

"Elizabeth Gate team here, what is your status?" Lestrade spoke into the device.

"We've found Anderson in the Climbers and Creepers greenhouse. Broken leg and appears to be in shock. Permission to call for a golf cart to pick him up?" the officer at the other end asked.

Lestrade bit back a curse. "Wait until I'm there to assess. Should be five minutes." Lestrade turned down the volume on his walkie-talkie and then took off at a run towards the greenhouse as his accompanying officers struggled to keep up.

Amid the empty jungle gyms and passageways of the Climbers and Creepers play area, Anderson lay crumpled in the corner. As Lestrade approached, he saw the other man's blood-soaked pant leg tilted at an awkward angle where the bone stuck out. Anderson's face was pale, bleached with sweat, and his eyelids flapped helplessly. His torso was covered in the jackets of two officers.

Lestrade knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. 

"How many attacked you?" he asked.

Anderson muttered something in the back of his throat and Lestrade leaned down to better hear it.

"You gotta speak up," Lestrade kept his voice low and steady.

"S-S-Sally," Anderson coughed out the word with great effort. "T-took... Sally." He clenched his teeth and a look of great pain scraped along the lines of his face.

" _Where_ did they take Sally?" Lestrade pressed. His voice struggled to stay even.

When Anderson opened his mouth, he let out a sound like a strangled wail. "M-my leg..." he panted.

"Don't think about your stupid bloody leg," he gripped Anderson's shoulder. "If you want us to find Sally alive, you're going to tell me where they took her and how many of them there were."

"T-ten!" Anderson strained with the effort. His breathing came up short. "N-no, fifteen? They had guns. I don't know where they took her... I don't know!" He grabbed Lestrade's vest. "We have to find her!"

"All right, we have people looking," he tried to pacify his hysterical partner. "Tell me where Carter is."

"They're going to hurt her," Anderson broke down into sobs, which were cut short when he threw himself forward as though he intended to stand. 

Lestrade pinned him by the shoulder. "Will you stay bloody down?" Anderson trembled in his hold, but gave in quickly.

Lestrade looked up at the other officers. "Call for the golf cart. Tie him up if you have to, just get him safe to the ambulance."

One of the jacket-less officers spoke into his walkie-talkie, which buzzed back before a different voice came on:

"Victoria Gate group. We... erm, think we've found Carter."

Lestrade yanked his walkie-talkie out of his vest. "Repeat. Confirm you've found Carter."

It was strange for Lestrade to imagine all the color draining from a person's voice. "Cannot confirm. But we've definitely found someone strapped to the Hercules Fountain in front of Palm House. The injuries look serious. Request a golf cart, a ladder, and additional help."

Lestrade's walkie-talkie buzzed as he made his way to the Palm House. 

"Lion's Gate team, ATB's swept the area. Does Victoria Gate team still request assistance?"

"It's, um... pretty bad. Yes."

Lestrade slowed as he approached the crowd of uniformed officers surrounding the fountain. They'd found a way to shut off the spray, and four officers waded in.

At the center of the man-made pond stood the famous statue of Hercules fighting the snake, Achelous. As a boy, Lestrade found the story of that statue more interesting than any of the plant life.

Now there was a body tied to the snake with electrical tape, so that it looked like Hercules was punching him instead. That person's face was smashed in several angles, leaving red gouges and puffy, purple skin around it. 

Lestrade took off his shoes and vest, and waded into the pond. He felt the ground sink beneath his feet with each step as he headed towards the unknown figure.

He knew, even without recognizing, that this was Carter. Carter, who accepted Lestrade, a man ten years younger, as an equal. Carter, who had been doing this job fifteen years and didn't care to change it. Carter who showed Lestrade the ropes, then just as quickly bought him drinks during Lestrade's awful divorce.

They used to do lunch, but then Lestrade got his team and then Sherlock, and didn't have time for anything else. It'd been ages since they'd said more than a few words in passing.

Lestrade was nearly close enough to see the name tag sewn onto the body's jacket. And he realized he vehemently did not want to look. He slowed his approach as he realized that he would have nightmares of this moment for the rest of his life, and they'd start the moment he looked at that name tag.

One of the other officers had gotten ahead and was climbing the slick statue. He scrabbled at the tape, searching for a hold in order to start peeling at it with a pocket knife.

"It's him," the officer called out, but the few who could hear him were wading through the muck of the pond. "It's-- I think he's breathing."

Something inside of Lestrade clenched. He felt light-headed.

The golf carts approached, one carrying a ladder and the other carrying medical personnel. They pushed the ladder over the water, and Lestrade and the other three officers guided it towards the statue. 

Before they even loaded Carter on, Lestrade climbed out. He tugged on his vest and pulled out his walkie-talkie.

"Any signs of Donovan?" his own voice cracked in his ears.

"Elizabeth Gate entrance team: ATB reports having swept the area. No signs of intruders or Donovan. Recommend course of action?"

Lestrade nodded to himself as his thoughts and doubts fell into place. "Yeah, pass the walkie-talkie to Sherlock."

Silence at the other end.

"Repeat: I want to speak to Sherlock."

"Sorry, sir. He said he needed to pop off to get a fizzy drink. I thought as long as we didn't let him inside the Gardens--" he began.

Lestrade burst out a string of curses.

"We'll send ATB in to find him, sir," the officer hurried.

"Don't bother, he's not here. And neither is Donovan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Anderson apparently had a daughter. Trust me, I didn't want to invent this fact. It just sort of happened, like how the Chief of Police suddenly has a name in this story. I hope you're all as squicked and horrified by the idea as I was.
> 
> *ATB is England's equivalent of SWAT, except a bit more specialized.
> 
> Questions? Comments? Feel free to ask. Be the sleuth. Solve the mystery.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Slip inside the eye of your mind_ ," Sherlock sang under his breath as he crossed the road. _"Don't you know you might find/a better place to play?_ " He breathed a chuckle at that last part. "Better place, indeed."

He moved past an electronic store, where a wall-sized television set offered the enormous visage of a brunette newscaster. Her dimples and pores were each the size of a palm as she spoke earnestly to her audience.

"... Kew Gardens Station Underground is still closed due to construction. This comes in the wake of the gas leak three months ago. When taking the District Line, use the Gunnersbury or Richmond stations as alternates, as there will be no stops at Kew..."

It was a full 400 meters from the Royal Botanical Gardens to Kew Gardens Station, and at Sherlock's leisurely pace, it took him ten minutes to arrive.

The opening to the underground was roped off with caution tape, while two men in construction gear stood on either side, chatting. It was the sort of mild chatter that occurred between people trying to stall the return to work, without having anything to say to each other. 

Both men eyed Sherlock warily as he approached.

"I'm with the police. Just coming to check up on your progress," he said. He flashed Lestrade's badge. Neither man really looked at it, but they shrugged and looked away, a sign of submission.

Sherlock ducked beneath the tape and made his way down the stairs into the darkened tube station.

The red work lights gave off a dull glow along the far walls, while the occassional spotlight shone down from the ceiling, casting a simple circle below.

Sherlock ducked in and out of the darkness every few steps. There was no sign of life, no whirr of machines or chatter of workers. Just the tap of his own footsteps.

 _"Take me to the place where you go/where nobody knows if it's night or day,"_ Sherlock sang to himself, voice echoing back more loudly as he stepped out of the main entrance and towards side cooridor.

"I knew it had to be underground if no one can tell whether it's night or day, and what's more obvious than the London Underground? Do you enjoy being so predictable?"

" _Step outside, the summertime's in bloom_ ," a voice echoed back to him. There was another sound, like a hiss of breath and then a guttoral noise.

Sherlock's lips trembled as they slid apart, baring his teeth with his grin. Sherlock slinked closer, barely making out two figures under the dim circle of light fifteen meters ahead.

"It's February. Summertime is blooming in only one place in London: the Royal Botanical Gardens. You'd given me the exact location, but not the time. Leading me to Brian Epstein's file showed me your dedication to every line of this song.I simply had to wait for Sally Donovan's involvement in this. She was the only 'Sally' of significance between us."

Sherlock saw the form of Donovan on her knees, bound, and he could just make out the apple taped to her mouth, wedging it painfully open. Her curls were a tangled mess draped around her. As he drew closer, he saw that there were marks and shadows along her torso and legs, which took a reddish sheen in the light.

" _Gonna start a revolution from my bed_ ," Moriarty sang as he stood over her, one hand on a pistol, the other hand deep in the pocket of his trench coat, while he scanned the darkness with lazy certainty.

Sherlock stepped into the light ten paces away and spread his arms. " _You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out."_

Moriarty's lips tugged, his eyebrows rose, before relaxing with grace.. He sighed out his breath and tilted his head as though overcome with feelings.

Donovan's eyes widened. She shifted painfully and made a wretched sound in the back of her throat.

"Here you are," Moriarty murmured. 

In one movement, he pressed the gun to Donovan's head and fired.

The metallic bang echoed through the tunnel. Sherlock's ears rang as he watched the young woman slump to the concrete.

Blood seeped from the open wound, pooling around her. Sherlock froze under his light, unblinking.

A stinging weakness crawled up the back of Sherlock's legs. His gaze was trapped on Sally's crumpled form, his vision fixed on patch of curls dyed a deep red.

"Is that shock?" Moriarty's voice went shrill, echoing off the walls. He seemed caught between laughter and admonishment. "That surprised you? Really?"

Sherlock dragged his gaze away from Sally and stared at Moriarty. His fingertips lost all feeling. He searched the files of his brain for what to do. Too many answers came at once, and none of them were the right one.

Moriarty looked at his gun and shrugged. "I guess I'm not so predictable after all." He used his toe to nudge Sally's body. "Look at her. Your bully: the woman who found any excuse to pick on you."

An unfamiliar sound came from Sherlock’s throat: something small and instinctive. 

"And this is the thanks I get? I'd find your attachment to her adorable, if it weren't so tasteless."

"Not attached," Sherlock grunted. His gaze dragged back to Sally and he thought of the bodies he studied in St. Bart's. All of them were cold, fleshy, like some sort of slug on a slab. But her skin was vibrant with blood and breath she'd taken only moments ago. She looked as though she might get up to walk away.

"That was unnecessary," Sherlock's voice felt like it came from very far away.

Moriarty hissed his breath through his teeth. "It really wasn’t. See, only one of us will walk out of this tunnel alive." With a chuckle he added: "And it's _not_ going to be me."

Sherlock processed his words for a prolonged moment, while an error message sounded in his brain.

Moriarty clicked on the safety before he stooped down and slid his gun across the concrete. It tapped the toe of Sherlock's shoe.

"You think I'll kill you?" Sherlock asked, his own voice unsure.

Moriarty folded his hands in front of himself. "You're going to have to," he said with a flicker between a solemn smile and a frown. "See, I’ve redirected a train of Sunday tourists to arrive in this station in two minutes. Not a big deal, really, except for all the bombs I’ve rigged throughout. Been very busy.”

Sherlock’s fingers twitched as he stared at the gun, which had its still-warm casing pressed against his shoe. 

"Why?" Sherlock breathed, bending down to pick it up. It was hot against his hand, heavy in his hold.

Moriarty's eyebrows pinched and for a moment, Sherlock was certain he saw a very basic pain cross the other man's face.

"It's awful, being at the top," Moriarty's voice was a shadow of itself. "You have nowhere to look but down. I've everything in the palm of my hand -- there's nothing to reach for.”

Moriarty's hands trembled as he separated them. " All I ever do is fix the mistakes of stupid people. I'm Mr. Fix-It. 'Daddy, I broke this.' 'Daddy, I've ruined that.' I’m a glorified plumber.” 

"This is a trap," Sherlock said. "A trick. You're going to try to kill me."

"No, _you're_ going to try to kill _me._ Do keep up."

Sherlock straightened. "I don't believe you," he said simply. "And I don't believe there are bombs here."

A strange look crossed Moriarty's face, like a mix of disappointment and dullness. He pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Let off number nine."

The entire tunnel howled, like a wailing rush of wind. Sherlock felt the explosion as a shudder through his legs and torso, shaking him as a breath of fire erupted at the other end of the tunnel. Solid rock fell from the ceiling onto the platform and Sherlock's ears rang in a piercing screech.

"How are you doing this?" Sherlock's throat was raw. He clenched his hands into fists the way he remembered that John used to, but it didn't provide any relief.

"You really don't get it? I OWN this place. I own _everything_."

"You'll kill us both and dozens of others. Why?" Sherlock’s own voice trembled its way out.

Moriarty’s eyes reddened as though tears might start to fall. "You think you know boredom, Sherlock? You have no idea." He tugged up his sleeve to stare at his Rolex. “Thirty seconds.”

Sherlock gripped his hair and paced under the spotlight. "Why do you assume I care about other people?" Sherlock asked, as the edges of a plan began to click together. 

"I don't. But if you run away, up those stairs like Cinderella catching her carriage, the men up there have strict orders to shoot you. They’re mine, too.” His lips curled into a smile. 

“What will you get by dying?” Sherlock’s voice came louder than he expected.

“Something new,” Moriarty whispered. “Of course, now I have to make it more interesting, because you doubted me." He held out his walkie-talkie. "After you kill me, you have to say the code, or else the bombs will go off anyway."

"I don't know a code!" Sherlock shouted. “I don’t know any-“

"Yes you do," Moriarty said. "Ten seconds… nine…”

Sherlock could hear the scrape of metal as the heavy tram drew closer. It was impossible to stop -- even with the brakes applied, the momentum would carry it to the platform. None of them would survive the explosion.

Sherlock's sweat-slicked fingers switched off the safety before he held up the heavy pistol. He aimed for the other man's chest, but fired a bit higher. Moriarty choked and collapsed to his knees as deep red oozed from the side of his neck, the carotid artery. The consulting criminal turned his brown eyes on Sherlock and coughed out a trail of blood before grinning. 

Sherlock grabbed the walkie-talkie from the dying man's hand.

"Don't look back in anger," Sherlock said into the device.

There was an enormous screech of metal as the train pulled into the station. Confused people began unloading from the tube, but when they saw the gruesome scene, the passengers grabbed for each other and dragged them back to the car for safety.

"Don’t look back in anger. TELL ME I'M RIGHT!" Sherlock hollered into the walkie-talkie. 

Screams and some wails echoed around him. The doors to the tram slid shut. "Stand clear of the closing doors," the automated voice said.

A buzz came from the receiver, then, "Yes sir, Mr. Holmes."

\--

Lestrade ducked out of the ambulance in the parking lot of Kew Station as he approached Sherlock. "I've called John," he said, his words bitten off as if bitter to taste.

Sherlock raised his head, but not his gaze. "He's with his wife," he murmured.

"He's on his way here, now."

Sherlock ran calculations through his mind: both the time it would take to arrive from hospital, as well as the probability of John leaving immediately. While seven or eight calculations at a time constantly ran in his mind, Sherlock struggled with just the two. His answers came to him garbled and warped.

Lestrade attempted to look Sherlock in the eye. "They're about to bring her out. I have to make sure Anderson doesn't break his other leg." He hesitated. "You.... going to be all right?"

Sherlock licked his lips. "Fine," his voice came out too light, too foreign that he nearly began to laugh.

"Fine," Lestrade said as quickly. "Of course. Just stay in this spot." They heard the rattle of the gurney up the stairs even before they saw the back of the coroner's jacket.

Lestrade forced his eyes away and moved back to the nearby ambulance. 

"I need to see her," came a hollow voice. Anderson sat on a gurney, trembling and pale. His leg was bandaged and and elevated, though blood was seeping through the dressings. 

"You need to have gone to the hospital an hour ago," Lestrade said.

"Sir, he's in no condition to leave this vehicle," a wiry nurse, about Anderson's height but less his weight, had her hand on his shoulder as if she'd already pinned him down and wasn't ready to stop.

Anderson's teeth ground together with agony. "I need to see her, Greg! They can't do this to me!" his voice tore out as a sick holler, and he grabbed blindly at Lestrade's shirt.

Lestrade took his hands and gave them a squeeze. "Best stop whining about it then." He let loose the supports of Anderson's leg, despite the nurse's protests. Lestrade slid an arm around Anderson's shoulder. "Lean on me and hop with your good leg. If you fall, I'm leaving you."

Shaking, pale, Anderson swallowed the sick in the back of his throat that came with shifting upright, and nodded. Anderson wobbled a moment before he leaned heavily on Lestrade.

"They want to take me away from her," Anderson spoke in a tiny voice. "But I have to... I have to see her."

"Come on then. Faster, or you'll miss her."

The two coroners wheeled the gurney, with a black, human-sized bag sitting atop it. Anderson nearly pulled out of Lestrade's hold as he moved faster towards it.

"Stop," Lestrade called to them, eyeing both coroners as if they might want a confrontation.

"Sir, that ambulance has been waiting an hour," said the shorter one, a woman whose tag displayed only the name Marjorie.

"Official police business. Open it so we can examine." 

Marjorie traded glances with her partner. Her lips were set in white when she spoke. "You might want to look away." She unzipped the top of the bag. 

Anderson let out a guttoral wail, a sound Lestrade never heard, but something he'd felt every time he watched a good person fall. Lestrade turned his gaze away. Anderson's face was stretched with despair as he gagged on a sob. His fingernails dug into Lestrade's arm, and the DI gripped tighter to hold him steady.

Anderson tore his arm out of Lestrade's hold and wobbled on his feet before pointing to the side at Sherlock. "YOU did this. You killed her, you PSYCHOPATH!"

"Oi!" Lestrade grabbed Anderson's arm. "Cut it out."

"This is YOUR fault!" Anderson hollered, bent double to force the sound out. 

Sherlock watched with wide eyes, barely registering the movement. "I..."

John stumbled out of a nearby taxi and jogged his way over to Sherlock.

Anderson coughed and then leaned weakly against Lestrade, who dragged him back to the ambulance, as the coroners led the gurney into their van.

John eyed his friend. "You.... all right?" It wasn't a question, it was a hope, and Sherlock understood that.

Sherlock straightened where he stood and took a deep breath. "Of course I am." His voice sounded pleasantly still to his own ears. "I'm not dead, after all." He watched the coroners take the now-empty gurney back down the stairs to the tube.

John winced. "Lestrade told me: Donovan and Moriarty. I'm... really sorry."

"Nothing to be done," Sherlock said. 

An officer, mid thirties, more accustomed to traffic, not murders, nervously approached them. "Mr. Holmes? We'd like to take you to the station to ask a few questions."

"Oh, come on-- you've seen what he's been through. This has to be illegal to detain him," John said.

"It's fine," Sherlock said. "I've nothing better to do." He turned to John. "Go back to your wife."

"No, I'm coming with you to the station. And I don't care in the least if you want me there or not."

The officer fumbled a moment before nodding. He turned back to Sherlock. "Mr. Holmes?"

Sherlock watched the back of the coroner's jacket as the gurney exited the tunnel. "Just a moment," he whispered.

"But Mr. Holmes--"

"Shh." The gurney had a bag, and in that bag was a body. It didn't move, didn't shift as they brought it into the van.

John watched his friend's face. "Sherlock?" he asked.

"It's fine. It's not as though they'll keep me long," was the reply. Sherlock turned to the officer. "Shall we?"

Three hours of questioning became formal charges and an arrest. John was prepared to stay in the police station all night, but once Sherlock reminded him of his ailing wife, John reluctantly parted ways. Sherlock was alone, imprisoned in the police station, once more. 

\--

Sherlock’s coat, scarf and disposition were unruffled as the police officer led him out from behind the bars of the holding cell. Sherlock offered an unimpressed look to Mycroft before shrugging his arm away from the officer’s hold.

"I fear we're making a habit of this, brother," Mycroft said as he signed his check and left it with the guard.

"Not enoying yourself, Mycroft?" Sherlock replied as he and his brother walked three paces apart, down the hall and out the main entrance into the snowy outdoors.

"Indeed. I'd have let you stay here longer than a night, to dwell on your blunders, except John was willing to sell his house to post your rather expensive bail. I hate watching desperate people: they can be so depraved." 

As the limo arrived, Mycroft held open the door and paused to watch any change on his brother's face, so Sherlock kept his head down as he climbed in.

"How far along in the investigation are they?" Sherlock asked when seated.

"Recording the testimonials of twenty witnesses is a time-consuming process," Mycroft said, taking the seat beside him. "Some even claim to have seen you shoot Sergeant Donovan."

"I'm asking if Moriarty is still alive."

"As of right now, there is no evidence that the body on the table is not James Moriarty," Mycroft said. "We're investigating this thoroughly. Should he climb to his feet in the morgue, I have several armed men on call to ensure he goes back down."

"Not taking any chances. What was that you said about desperate people?" Sherlock held out his hand.

"Don't analyze me, Sherlock. You're not very good at it." Mycroft begrudgingly pulled out the other man's wallet and keys. Sherlock insisted silently until Mycroft finally gave him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

"Obviously quitting smoking didn't suit you after all," Mycroft said.

"This is a habit I've decided to keep," Sherlock said and dangled a cigarette between his lips. He cupped his hand over the end and lit it. Despite the snow, Mycroft rolled down his window. "It was an enjoyable hobby in Norway. Doesn't have quite the same stigma there."

Mycroft's mobile phone began to ring. Sherlock half-expected to hear _Don't Look Back in Anger_ , but realized with a twinge that he wasn't likely to hear that song again.

"It's John," Mycroft announced and buried his phone back into his jacket pocket. "Likely checking up to be sure I didn't leave you frozen in a ditch somewhere."

"Answer it," Sherlock said, breathing out the tepid smoke. Mycroft seemed ready to ignore him, but Sherlock tensed. "It's important, answer it." His voice was raised in a demand.

Mycroft pulled the phone out and answered. "Hello, John," he began.

"How long, Mycroft?" John's voice was shaking, uneven. It was a growl of a whisper, the breath before a roar. "How long did you know that Moriarty was running around free, while you kept your brother abroad and in jail?"

Mycroft's voice took on a sharp edge that John never heard before. "I will explain my reasoning at a later date. You only need concern yourself with the fact that Sherlock is being brought to Baker Street."

"You did this! You ENORMOUS SHIT--"

Mycroft hung up the phone and turned the power off, before he hunched in his seat, frowning into his mobile.

"I trust you're satisfied?" he turned to Sherlock.

Sherlock was grinning around his cigarette. "It's a pleasure watching him yell at you. You tense as though he's your superior. It's amazing, the amount of power you've afforded him in your mind."

Mycroft leaned his head back against the head rest. "My mistake was in calling him the enabler, during our last conversation." He eyed his brother, the cigarette, and felt for his checkbook. "It's been made clear to me who the biggest enabler amongst us is."

"Enabler and deciever. But when did you finally believe me that Moriarty had faked his death on the roof of St. Bart's?" Sherlock asked, taking another drag.

"The evidence is in front of you. Figure it out." Mycroft sighed.

"All along?" Sherlock asked, lounging in his seat. But his brother's posture spelled defeat, regret. Sherlock tilted his head. "No... Since the... It was the note I sent John to give you? The note from prison was what finally convinced you to track Moriarty."

"I had no time to chase dead men. I had my doubts about the circumstances of his previous 'death,' but the bomb threat was all the evidence I needed to change my view."

"You knew it wasn't from me and you launched an investigation."

"'Turn in the mobile as evidence or Wormwood goes up in flames.' It suited Moriarty's style. He was even less subtle than you, apparently. And it was a dynamic demand: requesting the evidence I refused to turn over. He posed it as a bomb threat so the court would be forced not to accept the mobile as evidence. On top of that, he proved that he had easy access to you in that prison, forcing my hand. Though I daresay he wanted you more badly out on the streets. Now we know he wanted a truly final confrontation."

Sherlock breathed a puff of smoke against the window, misting it over. "He's not really dead..?" he murmured and it sounded like a question.

"You pulled that trigger. You would know best." The car began to slow. "But we have his body in cold storage and dental records, blood sample and hair folicle sample all concur that this is him. While he was always given towards theatrics, this appears to have been his final bow."

The car stopped, but Sherlock didn't move. Mycroft raised both eyebrows.

"But he's not really... can't really be..."

Mycroft took a deep breath. "Dear brother, you may ponder this to excess in the comfort of your own flat. Kindly get out of my car."

\--

Carefully disregarding Mrs. Hudson's loving concern and thousand questions with the simple response of "headache," Sherlock made his way straight up the stairs and flopped onto the couch. He idly picked his current mobile phone from where he'd left it on the coffee table the previous day, and tossed it in the air to catch it.

On the third round, he accidentally pressed the button that turned the screen on. It warned him of seven missed voice messages.

When he caught the phone again, he turned it over in his hands, examining it. He knew the first four were calls from John. What were the other three?

He considered the possibility that people were expressing their concern at his most recent arrest: perhaps John tried calling again. Maybe Mrs. Hudson, to see where he was and why he hadn't returned home.

Perhaps Moriarty.

Sherlock clicked the voice message app and pressed his phone to his ear. The first four messages were from John, right after the trial, talking in a tone that started soft and friendly, and grew tighter with each passing message. Sherlock erased them straightaway. The next one was also from John, confessing to Sherlock that he was willing to sell the house to post his bail. Sherlock deleted it.

The next one was the sound of breathing, two footsteps, then silence. Sherlock went to check the number, but first the next message played.

Lestrade sounded completely withdrawn. There wasn't an ounce of energy in his voice, though heavy defeat lingered in his words. Pain, like an injured animal. His voice had a biting edge as though he were holding back tears.

"Chief says, erm, not to come for a while," the message said. "You get why. We're understaffed now, and he's got to find people to fill in. It.... it's a nightmare. That's what it is, a nightmare.

"I'll let you know when to come back," Lestrade went on. "You won't be violating your parole. It's just... it's on hold, unless we can transfer you to another precinct. I..." He let out a shaking breath. Sherlock never recalled hearing Lestrade this way. "I don't know. Stay out of trouble. Just stay out of it."

The message ended. Sherlock tossed the phone into the air and caught it six more times before he wandered his way around the flat.

Everything felt subtly misshapen and bleached of color and texture. His fingers were stiff on his violin, pressing the strings too firmly so they left deep red lines in his fingertips. He shifted notes too slowly so the sound was distasteful: sharp and piercing.

As he struggled to play, he noticed there was a weight to this room he'd never felt before, as though the wallpaper pressed in on him at all angles. It changed at intervals: a warm comfort one hour, a smothering hand the next.

Afternoon turned to evening, then late night. Two hours before sunrise, Sherlock turned to crap telly to create a drone of noise in his mind.

Instead, it sent his brain into a contemplative frenzy. Moriarty. Gun. Bang. Blood. "Don't Look Back in Anger." "Beatle-making Prince of Pop." The look on Donovan's face before Moriarty shot her: the wide eyes, the mouth pried open around the apple, like a scream. Would she have tried to warn Sherlock of the danger?

 _So Sally can wait/She knows it's too late_.

Did she know she was going to die, while Sherlock had no idea?

Pain reverberated through his skull like a bullet wound. He snatched Mrs. Hudson's pills off the table and popped a whole of one and then a second. He didn't even try to make it to his room.

Sleep created a pleasant silence for an hour before it was wrought with nightmares. Sherlock thought he awakened twice, only to find himself in that tunnel, staring down the barrel of a gun and Moriarty's face, twisted into a loathsome grin.

When he finally awoke, he was covered in sweat on the kitchen floor. 

He set about fixing and updating the equipment on the kitchen table. Blades needed sharpening, lenses needed purifying. 

The first time that he put down a specimen -- mold in a plastic cup, extracted from something in the fridge -- turned, and found it missing, he hollered for Mrs. Hudson. She didn't respond, so he threw his head back to shout again.

But when he cracked open his eyes, he saw the specimen was placed neatly on a pile of papers to the left of where he was looking. He didn't remember moving it there, but he could still feel its presence on his fingertips, as though he'd just touched it.

The next times this happened, he didn't shout for anyone. He took no meals and said no words aloud. He didn't shower or change his clothes.

Each time he closed his eyes, he saw Moriarty's lifeless eyes, the blood oozing from his head. He heard the other man's words: "You think you know boredom?" The despondent tone of his voice.

And while he thought it wise to give himself another few days to recover, Sherlock soon found himself staring at the ceiling, considering the ways Moriarty might have escaped.

He could've fitted the gun with one real bullet and then one fake. He could've put liquid latex on the side of his neck and filled it with fake blood, so that it looked like a fresh wound when torn away. He was given towards theatrics, after all.

Maybe it was a real bullet, and Sherlock misfired so that it only scratched the side of Moriarty's neck. The coroners could have been in on it, dragging a live body away.

Thousands of possibilities populated his mind. That night, he took the two pills as well as an antihistamine. 

He awoke to a world that felt hazy around the edges. He was certain it was another dream, so he let his mind wander back to Moriarty's "death." The gun, the bullets, the explosion, the fear, the gratitude. Gratitude?

"Oooh, it's dark up here," Mrs. Hudson's voice rang through the silence.

Sherlock woke drowsily from his thoughts. His shoulder was still twitching as he relived pulling the trigger.

Mrs. Hudson parted the curtains and opened a window. "Get some fresh air in here," she announced quietly with a wink.

Sherlock blinked back against the light. When last he was out, the clouds were heavy and deep, braced not to move for days. Now the sky was clear.

Mrs. Hudson started organizing the piles of papers by the phone.

"Feeling infirmed, dear? You haven't been out in days. If your milk's gone old, I'll pick you up a new one."

Sherlock didn't reply.

"And you smell a bit ripe, love. You may want to shower before you make yourself sicker."

She opened the fridge. "Might be something you at-- augh!" She cupped her hand around her nose. "What on earth are you storing in there?"

Sherlock watched her from afar, blinking occasionally. "Mold," he said and a quiver of laughter tickled the back of his throat. He felt like he might collapse. His mind swiveled back to that moment in the tunnel. Perhaps the bullet wound and compounding bloodloss rendered Moriarty unconscious. If the coroners worked for him, they'd have secured his safety.

Trousers came flying at his face, as well as a shirt. 

"Into the shower with you and then out. Get out of my house!" Whatever charitable intentions Mrs. Hudson arrived with had fallen by the wayside.

Sherlock commended himself for at least getting the old woman's blood flowing and mind running.

\--

When Mary threw her alarm clock at John four days ago, she complained of having too many machines around her. Now she had twice as many, as well as an oxygen mask. John felt sickness twist inside his gut as his eyes lingered on the feeding tube jutting out of her stomach. He'd gotten his way after all. He wanted to throw up.

Much as he wanted to be at her side all hours, ICU visits were limited to two hours at a time. John usually took a meal and paced the cooridors.

He thought about picking up flowers to put on Sebastian Morstan's gravestone. How he'd brought Mary to visit the crematorium just a week ago, and she barely kept her eyes open. She'd held the flowers while he wheeled her up to that little stone plaque: "Sebastian Morstan: Loving Father, Honorable Man." There wasn't enough room to add: "You will be missed." Nobody was going to miss him once Mary was gone.

John clenched his hands into fists and thought about how much Mary would appreciate it if he at least pretended that Sebastian was a significant person in his life. Then he could maybe pick up flowers for her as well, which would give him small comfort in the otherwise devoid hospital room.

He also entertained the thought of buying flowers for Sherlock, and gave himself a good chuckle as he paced the hall. 

As the doctors and nurses rushed around him, some wheeling computers on stands he tugged out his phone and dialed his friend.

As he passed by a room, he heard a familiar sound:

 _"So Sally can wait_..."

He continued past two more rooms before stopping. He ended his call and rushed towards that room.

While he was a doctor, he never had the grace or fluidity of movement as hospital doctors. It was five years since the army, so he nearly tripped over an old woman hunched with her walker. He gripped the metal bars and made certain she had her balance before he dashed around a computer and into that room.

The radio was off and the bed, newly-made, was empty. The window was open and a light, damp breeze danced its way in.

A nurse approached. "Oh, excuse me, are you lost?"

"Was there a radio in here? Sorry. Not crazy. Doctor Watson, Mary Watson's husband," he corrected himself and offered his hand. "But was there a radio on?"

"No idea," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Cleaning staff might've been listening to music. Do you need help finding your wife's room?"

"No, no, I'm... Sorry. Not crazy, again. Just. Right."

He pushed his way through the smoked glass doors into the ICU once again. It felt less like his second home and more like a prison each time he went through those doors.

John heard hushed voices inside his wife's room. He creaked the door open and saw Mary propped upright, with one eye squinted open, trained on Mrs. Hudson. There was some color to her face

The old woman was reading from a decade-old laptop that sat open in her lap.

“ _And then we all saw the hound again. It was coming for us_ -“ Mrs. Hudson stopped and turned, a smile lighting her face as she nodded to John.

Mary raised a thin, shaking finger and held it over her oxygen mask, signaling him to silence. 

“The Hounds of Baskerville: we’re at the best part,” Mrs. Hudson explained.

John nodded, his bewilderment shifting to pleasant surprise. Mrs. Hudson went back to reading. John watched the look of pain on Mary's face fade to something softer. He saw her struggle to keep that eye open. Once or twice her fingers tensed around the thin hospital sheets at a particularly tense part.

He thought of flowers, and how nothing could brighten the room as much as Mrs. Hudson's visit.

Then he thought of someone else who doubtlessly needed a friendly voice. He pardoned himself from the room dialed Lestrade’s number.

It rang three times, then, “What?” Not the DI's usual greeting.

“Just, er… doing the checking-in.” John winced as he thought back to Sally's surprise visit right after he found out about Sebastian Morstan's death. Had Greg really sent her to check on him? “Should I bring you lunch or something?” 

“Bloody hell, I’m not Sherlock.”

John breathed out an uncomfortable chuckle. “Of course not. I just…. Where are you?”

“Working.”

“Already?” He exited the ICU into the noisy hallway.

“Carter’s in hospital, Anderson’s on leave, and we were understaffed before. There’s too many gaps that need filling. The Chief’s even doing some of Carter’s cases. London hasn’t exactly slowed down either.”

John hesitated against his words. “But what about you?”

“I’ll work until the day I die. That’s life. I’m not about to tell it to slow down.”

“Keeping yourself busy, then…” John took a deep breath. 

“Don’t have to think too much about things. I just go and I do.”

"That sounds like Sherlock, too," he said. "I... I'm jealous, actually. No, that's not what I meant to say."

"It's all right," Lestrade said. "You've been cooped up too long. Go outside, go for a walk, visit people. The, er, the ones we care about leave us too soon, or some rubbish. I don't know. But just clear your head."

\--

Sherlock tugged his coat tighter around himself as moved towards the river, away from the hospital. He eyed a homeless woman on a bench until she gave up her seat. He curled onto the bench as though he intended to live there.

He opened the text messaging app on his phone and typed: _"I need you."_

Molly's reply was immediate: _"I'll be right there."_

Sherlock's eyes pulled into little half-moons: a Cheshire grin. He dialed her number and pressed the phone to his ear.

"I'm not in the flat," he murmured as soon as she picked up.

"I know," came her confident voice. "You're on the London Bridge City Pier, lounging on a bench and looking rather sure of yourself."

"'Sure of myself?' This is just my face."

"Then you always look that way."

His lips curled, threatening a smile. "You're spying on me."

"It's been my job nearly three years. I ought to be good at it." Her voice wafted from nearly beside him, as well as the phone. A shadow moved over him and he looked up into the eyes of the suit-clad, awkward girl who was his sole correspondent for two years.

She bit her lip as she smiled so that it nearly resembled the beak of some deceased bird. She wiggled her fingers at him as greeting and shrugged in on herself.

"Do me a favor," Sherlock began.

"Always," she breathed.

"I need you to examine Moriarty."

She made an uneasy sound in her throat. "I-I already did," she whispered as Sherlock shifted to his feet, pacing around her. "I took the liberty of, erm, asking Mycroft. I wanted to be sure it was him -- see it for myself."

"He's not dead," Sherlock insisted.

"He is, though..." she murmured.

"You're wrong," he said it simply as though he knew every secret in the universe.

"Jim and I -- we got close.. I mean, physically up close." She stopped herself and winced. "I didn't... We didn't have sex," the confession toppled from her mouth as she turned the color of the interior of a grapefruit. "But when we were dating, he stayed overnight three times and I knew up close what he looked like and this is definitely him."

"You weren't looking for the right signs: scars from plastic surgery, a minor height difference." Sherlock's voice went gruff as he grabbed her shoulders. She clenched as though she knew what came next.

"I-I did though," her voice grew quieter, more urgent. "I was a pathologist, Sherlock. I know what to look--"

"You're WRONG!" he hollered, face contorted with anger, nails digging into her suit."He's still alive."

She tensed, tucking her head down and squeezing her eyes shut. After a moment, she moved her hands to his chest, pressing with trembling hands.

"You're hurting me," she kept her voice even while her lips trembled. "You have to let go of me, Sherlock."

His face froze on a snarl, and he looked as though he didn't care to stop. Silence passed between them. "Asinine," he hissed as he finally let her go and turned away.

Molly wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing to return feeling back to her acheing shoulders.

"I know you want him to be alive," she murmured.

"I don't want--" Sherlock turned on her.

"Yes. You do. It's... um," she shook her head and stared at the wood of the dock beneath her feet. "It's all right. I don't think it's a bad thing."

"He has you fooled," Sherlock said. "You all think he's dead. But I'll see for myself."

Molly opened her mouth to protest, but cut herself short. "Yes... Yes, no, that's probably the right idea." She nodded slowly to herself.

\--

“Show me,” Sherlock said as they stood in the refrigerated room.

Lestrade nodded to Francis, Molly’s replacement: younger, prettier, with a bad dye job and frown lines. Once a bright, young student, she found herself disillusioned with life as a pathologist, but couldn’t find a way out.

Francis wheeled out the gurney.

Sherlock primed himself to scrutinize: to search for any marks of plastic surgery, any noticeable height difference, even to track the complexion, which was bound to be paler now.

When Francis pulled down the sheet, Sherlock was confronted with maggots. Writhing, wriggling maggots wormed their way through the skin on Moriarty’s face and chest. They consumed chunks of the flesh, leaving behind gaping wounds.

Sherlock’s gaze darted to Lestrade and Francis, who seemed unperturbed. 

Flies buzzed around the room: the noise made it impossible to concentrate. The smell was physically nauseating.

“Cover it,” Sherlock muttered and his hand covered his mouth a moment.

As soon as the drape was back on Moriarty, the buzzing stopped. 

“Uncover it again,” Sherlock said.

Lestrade stopped Francis. “This isn’t a game,” he growled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The good news: I got this chapter out by January 1st!
> 
> This chapter gave me the absolute willies. I kept having to pace every time I wrote another sentence. 
> 
> Did you guess where this was going? Please feel free to tell me your theories as to what was going to happen/what will happen in the comments. Also, if you like this story, please share it with your friends.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock tugged his own hair before he pushed his way through the wide double doors. Lestrade followed closely behind, leaving Francis to do the cleanup.

"Mind telling me what that was about?" Lestrade called after him.

"It wasn't-- It's not... A theory I have..." Sherlock's breath was short, his fingers trembling. He wanted to break down laughing: how intricate, delightful, amazing.

Lestrade caught up to Sherlock, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pinned him to the nearest wall.

"You're barely finishing sentences, more than usual. You're so careful not to slur your words that you've changed the way you pronounce them. Your pupils are dilated and you stink..." Lestrade scrutinized him closely, leaving just a couple of centimeters between them, London's own guard dog stared down the intruder. 

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut, crumpling where he stood. "I-I'm... I'm..." His lips cracked apart on helpless laughter that he quickly swallowed down his parched throat.

"You think I won't notice?" He gripped Sherlock's shirt even tighter. "I thought you were done with the drugs, I really did."

"Sleeping medication," Sherlock forced the words through a mouth that felt like cotton. "Blood tests, urine tests -- they'll show that any drugs in my system are from.... from common sleeping medication. You know I suffer from insomnia, and to ensure that I was in top shape for parole, I've been taking..."

"Narcotic?" Lestrade let go of the other man's shirt, but kept a hand to his shoulder so he couldn't fall over or wander off. 

"Prescription. I'll show you the bottle." 

Lestrade raised an eyebrow. "Is it your prescription?"

Sherlock winced and licked the inside of his dry mouth. "I see you're in top form today, detective," he formed his words slowly. "If only you were this astute all the time, you could solve your own cases."

Lestrade's frown lines were more visible so close. "You've grown into the same stupid prick as when we first met. Back then, I had to arrest you for those drugs, Sherlock. If you'd got anyone else checking in on you, you'd've spent years in jail."

Sherlock scoffed and spat on the floor, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You only went easy on me because of Mycroft."

"Mycroft told me you were special. That's all he said. I decided to see it for myself."

"You used my genius to improve your career." There was no malice to his voice, and Lestrade didn't know how to respond.

"I kept an eye on you and let you use your brain for good. You were never ungrateful, just intolerable. Let's not have me babysit you all over again."

"I don't need a babysitter," Sherlock hissed.

Lestrade pushed aside the hair on Sherlock's forehead, and wiped at a trail of sweat. He briefly sniffed the sweat, then wiped his hand on his slacks. "Narcotic. Stop taking the sleeping medication. You start acting normal -- or, well, yourself at least -- and I won't have to check up on you." 

Tempted to bop Sherlock's head like he would Anderson's, Lestrade instead gave Sherlock's shoulder a bit of a press before he led the way down the hall towards the exit.

Sherlock straightened where he stood, the fluorescent lights reflecting the oily sheen of his skin.

"He's not dead," Sherlock announced to Lestrade.

Lestrade waved a hand behind himself. "Yeah, yeah..."

\--

"He's not dead," Sherlock voice was hoarse as he stepped into the landing of his flat. "He's not dead. I know it. Why doesn't anybody believe me?"

"I believe you," a voice came from the kitchen. 

Sherlock turned, braced for an encounter -- grateful for one. His arms opened, his lips twitched into a smirk as he expected to see the slicked hair, the Westwood suit.

Instead, John, rumpled and lacking sleep, looked entirely out of place in the flat, like he'd stepped into the wrong house on accident.

Sherlock's arms drooped. The look on his face crumbled into something tiny and confused.

"You... why are you..?" the words mumbled their way from his parched throat.

"I believe you," John said, blinking but standing firm. "He faked his death before. He could do it twice."

Sherlock took the chair that faced away from his former flatmate. "Mary's in hospital. You should be there."

John winced. "I... um... thought it best to check on you."

Sherlock leaned back in his chair -- John's old chair. "Lestrade told you I'm on drugs."

"That's not..." John started.

"I was present for the phone call," Sherlock added.

"Are you though?" John asked, stepping into the sitting room to try to face Sherlock. "On drugs. I mean... that's not entirely why I'm here."

"Would you finally give up on me if I were?" Sherlock's lips were parted on a humorless grin.

John shook his head. "I know what you're doing and you're not alone."

Sherlock shifted to his feet, leaning into John's personal space. "How could you entertain the notion of understanding how my brain works?"

"Because I've... killed people, Sherlock. I've pulled the trigger and watched them fall and I had to learn to live with myself for it."

Sherlock scoffed. "You just told me you think he's alive."

"Whether he's alive or dead, you fired a gun and intended to kill a person. You also watched him murder Donovan. When you watch someone die, it changes you, Sherlock."

"Donovan? You can't possibly think I'm mourning her. You really have lost touch..."

“Maybe not mourning _her._ More like mourning the loss of your innocence.” 

Sherlock moved across the room and flatted himself out on the couch.

“And on the off-chance that Moriarty really is dead," John went on, "then you’ve taken a life. It was your first time.”

Sherlock pressed his hands together and stared ahead of himself.

“And whether you like it or not, you and Moriarty had a sort of…. adversarial connection. You took the life of a man you had an understanding with. It’s…. that’s not easy.”

“I’m not mourning,” Sherlock murmured, staring ahead at the blank wall.

John shook his head. “Alright, well, just know that if you want to talk, I’ll have my mobile on me, always. Call anytime.”

"If he were dead," Sherlock spoke up before John reached the doorway, "then he'd have left me something. A note, a sign, a will -- something."

John nodded. "I know," he said as though he really did know. "And if that happens, and if you need someone, please call."

John made his way down the stairs, leaving Sherlock muttering to himself.

"Need someone? I've never needed anyone."

"Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson called from downstairs. "I've made your dinner."

\--

The cloth of the drape pinched in a starburst formation around the gloved hands that tugged it down. Beneath the gloves, the thin hands were chapped and red from constant washing. 

The slender arms pulled the drape off Moriarty's face, revealing maggots. Maggots. Why maggots?

A hiss of breath. Whose breath? 

In the database Sherlock called his brain, he replayed the sounds from the other two participants: Francis' steady breathing and bored expression, Lestrade's hardened, determined look and held breath.

Grief beset Lestrade's features, and concentration as well.

If, Sherlock reasoned from the floor of his flat as he stared at the ceiling, Lestrade and Francis had both been paid off, they could have pretended not to be surprised by the sight of a rotting Moriarty. That would explain the rather forced boredom on the Forensic Scientist's face, as well as the knotted concentration on the DI's.

Sherlock pressed his palms together as his eyes traced the peeling coats of paint along the ceiling. 

The buzzing sound could have come from a machine, perhaps hidden under the table. And the vision of a thousand flies was easily a trick of the light.

 _"I thought you were done with the drugs. I really did."_ Lestrade's words echoed in his mind. Sherlock had insisted his sleeping medication was making him sluggish. 

But as he thought about it, he wondered how the Detective Inspector picked up on his behavior, unless he knew what to look for. Perhaps Lestrade planted the drugs. When he climbed into Lestrade's car, the Detective Inspector might have put a hallucinogen into the air vents. Or Francis, when shaking Sherlock's hand, could have worn a hypodermic needle around her wrist and angled it to reach Sherlock's skin and dispense a tiny amount of drug, just enough for a bad trip. No, that would’ve been obvious.

Sherlock paused in his thoughts as he waited for Mrs. Hudson to call him down for dinner for the fourth time. She'd been doing it at ten minute intervals. But now she wasn't calling for him. Her television wasn't even on and he just barely heard voices from downstairs. Peter? No. John.

He turned back to his thoughts. If he'd been drugged by an outside contaminent, a blood test could easily determine what drug sent him off. If Lestrade and Francis were playacting, then his drug test was bound to come back clear.

He had so many machines, lenses and chemicals in his flat, but they couldn't get quite the results he was looking for. There was only one place he knew well enough to be able to test his own blood, and while the machines weren't state-of-the-art, they worked far faster than any haphazard tests he could perform in his kitchen.

He threw on his coat and went to his room. Tugging out the false bottom of his sock drawer, he found a bag of medical instruments. Here he pulled out a hypodermic needle and pocketed it.

Sherlock crept out of his flat and rested at the top of the stairs. His feet found their way to the only areas of the steps that didn’t creak. Halfway down, he heard John’s voice clearly, coming from Mrs. Hudson's kitchen.

“I feel like ‘if you need something’ isn't enough,” John said. “Sherlock, he’s not the type to ever admit when he needs something.”

“Don’t I know it?” Mrs. Hudson agreed with a hushed tone. “I try keeping an eye on him, bringing him dinner and doing a bit of dusting. But he's always throwing a tantrum. If he’s not sulking, he’s insulting.”

“You… you’ve known him longer than I have,” John carried on in a whisper. “Was he ever like this before?”

“Not quite this bad, no. He’s always been unreasonable, but never so impossible. I do think him spending all his time alone, I think it’s done something to his head.”

“Like he’s been unsocialized?”

“Removed himself from society, more like. Mind you, he’s never been the friendly type. He’s like a cat: take the time to get to know him and he’ll stop by for dinner now and again.”

“Leave a dead mouse under your doorstop,” John chuckled.

“Oh, not another dead body - you stop that. I’m worried about him.”

“I know. Me too. But we can't leave him alone here. He needs company, whether he wants to admit it or not."

“Honestly, John, you should consider moving back in here. Not just to keep watch on Sherlock. I mean you’re hardly in your own home these days outside of sleeping.”

“I do most of that in hospital anyway,” he mumbled.

Sherlock made it down the last of the stairs as their voices grew quieter.

“You don’t look good.” When Sherlock squinted through the smoked glass of the door, he could see the silhouette of Mrs. Hudson shaking her head.

“Oh, thanks," John muttered.

“I mean that you don’t look rested. You’ve taken off work and you still don’t have any time for yourself.”

“I haven’t taken off work. Not anymore.”

“Don’t tell me you’re…”

“They’ve had to replace me.” 

Mrs. Hudson made a sad little noise and Sherlock wondered how this woman could feel so much pain over someone else's job loss.

“It’s all right," John went on, "I’m collecting right now. I just don’t have the time to be working.”

“Then you should definitely move in here." 

Given how insistent Mrs. Hudson's tone was, John meekly became the opposite. “We haven’t finished off paying the initial fee on the house. If I walk away now, I won’t have money to pay you for rent.”

Sherlock’s gaze turned to the door.

“Well... we’ll think of something, dear," Mrs. Hudson's tone softened.

“You have enough going on for you,” John said. “I’ll just…. Let’s just take this one day at a time. Thanks for dinner.”

There was the sound of scraping fabric as John slid on his coat. 

“Of course, of course," she said. “But if ever you’re lonely or overwhelmed, the bed upstairs’ll be waiting on you. And do stop by for dinner more often."

“Thanks,” he said and made his way to the landing. The door swung shut behind him, with no signs of Sherlock. 

\--

St. Bartholomew's hospital boasted an up-to-date security system, which meant they were one step ahead of Scotland Yard's archaic keycard system by implementing a user-unfriendly numbered pad system. Techs had the codes saved to their phones, written on their hands, or printed on tiny, often misplaced, slips of paper. 

Modern "conveniences" had a habit of working rather backward, Sherlock mused to himself as he punched a series of numbers into the keypad. On his first attempt, the red light stayed frustratingly red. But by his second try, the resounding red light flickered to a bright green flash before the door fell open to his hands.

Even in the dark, he knew his way around Molly's lab, but he flicked the fluorescent lights on to be certain. Two and a half years and the only pieces inside that were updated were the chairs. Amazing where St. Bart's budget went.

Sherlock's coat fell to the floor in a heap and he tugged up the sleeve of his pyjama shirt. The rubber bands pinched as he slid them around his bicep. As he reached down to the pocket of his coat, his nerved ached all the way down to his fingertips, which gripped the hypodermic needle.

During his stint of drug experimentation years before he met John, he kept a rather detailed journal of all the effects the different drugs provided to him. He favored cocaine due to its strong ability to sharpen his senses, but the visions LSD offered were always the most fascinating. 

He never experimented with heroin. He'd bought the supplies needed, even the drug itself. To his own ears, he called it his "final experiment" as his sense of boredom threatened to overtake him.

Then Lestrade found him, confiscated his journal, arrested him. It was all rather perfect timing that Sherlock attributed entirely to Mycroft's doing -- even after the elder Holmes had moved from their parents' house, Mycroft still kept a level of control over his younger brother. People called Sherlock gifted. Mycroft called him needy.

So it made sense that London's guard dog should arrive at a moment when Sherlock needed guarding. What puzzled Sherlock endlessly was how receptive Lestrade was to Sherlock's needs. Sherlock was bored, so Lestrade gave him cases. He enjoyed cases, so Lestrade gave him more. The chronicle of his drug experimentation fell out of favor as solving mysteries took precedence in Sherlock's life.

Here, now, Sherlock stared at the needle and wondered how different things might have been if he'd simply kept to the drugs.

He didn't wince as the needle slid into his arm, didn't cry, but he did tense and grit his teeth. He drew a satisfactory amount of blood, then pressed a cotton ball to his wound and slid off the rubber band.

A bit of blood went into several test tubes with a variety of chemicals, and those tubes went into a few machines that hadn't been updated since the late 90's. These machines looked like rather souped-up 8-track players.

He held the cotton ball to his skin as he sat, watching the machines work as the noisy printer spewed out perforated sheets of data.

He examined the sparse laboratory. During Molly's time at St. Bart's, she kept a framed picture of kittens on her desk. Now, the lab offered no signs of life or attachment: no framed pictures, no newspaper clippings, not even Francis' name bolded on a plaque. Francis was ready to leave each day as soon as she arrived.

Even the air seemed a different quality. It used to carry the pleasant smell of Molly's shampoo, and the unpleasant odor of her breath, as though the very air around her was marked with her presence. Now, it had a sterile stench of rubber gloves, disinfectant, and ancient metal.

He heard a beep -- not from the machines, from the door. There was a muttered curse, a soft voice with a hint of a Welsh accent: Francis.

She'd forgotten to finish a piece of work due early in the morning. She'd also lost the little slip of paper that reminded her of the password in the keypad. Screwing her eyes shut, she tried to remember the pattern by which she usually pressed the buttons.

The printer wasn't done printing, the lights were on, and the machines were still working.

 _7-5-4-7._ Red light.

 _7-6-4-7._ Red light.

"Damn it," she fretted at the keypad. "I need to finish this report, you stupid door. All the damn distractions today..."

 _7-5-1-7_. The red light flashed to a cheerful green and she shoved her way inside.

The light was on. Pity, she was sure she'd turned the damn thing off. Cleaning service must've left it on. Otherwise, the room was completely empty, the machines were off and-- hang on.

The printer, almost older than she was, made some wheezing noises as though it were active. She approached it, saw it was on, but saw that there was no paper in the tray. It hummed at her before switching itself to rest mode.

\--------------

Sherlock dumped the vials of blood into a hallway garbage can as he read over the paperwork. Nothing was out of the ordinary. He simply had higher-than-average levels of Benzodiazepines from his sleeping medications. Then there was only one experiment left to conduct.

With one arm, he clutched the printed test results to his chest, as he tugged on rubber gloves from the lab. He took the staircase down to the second level basement and used the same passcode to break into the morgue.

The lights in the darkened basement flickered, turned piercingly light, and then settled into something less painful, more distracting.

In the back storage area, set up similarly to the filing cabinets at New Scotland Yard, bodies were kept frozen in specialized drawers. Sherlock expected to find Moriarty's body under an alias, but his eyes landed on the name "M., James." They didn't dare write out the entirety of Moriarty's last name -- Sherlock wondered if that was out of favor to Moriarty, or to himself.

His fingers wrapped around the handle. He anticipated maggots, but he also expected a dummy or a real body that resembled Moriarty in most ways. Now, without Franics or Lestrade as distractions, he'd get to see for certain.

He pulled closer a nearby stool and tugged open James M.'s drawer. 

The body was already grey and slug-like. His lips had the blueish hue of meat kept on ice.

Pristine, except for the hole at the side of his neck. It looked so much smaller now that it wasn't covered in blood. Tendons were visible, even a bit of his spine and the whole body smelled vaguely of formaldehyde.

The face was clean, no maggots.

Sherlock sat down on the stool and stared. His eyes roved over every square inch, searching for any disturbing or promising signs. Each time he blinked, he still saw the vague outline of maggots in the darkness behind his closed eyes.

Sherlock tugged off a glove and pulled at the skin along one temple of his own face. His head ached. His face pinched near the sinuses. His vision began to blur and he felt his shoulders shake.

An emotion boiled in him like water in an overzealous kettle. It felt more like loneliness than he was prepared for.

"I had so many questions," he murmured as he stared down at the face that was unquestionably Moriarty’s. "Only you knew the answer. This isn't even fair."

He pressed his nose into his hand until it hurt and took a deep, thick breath.

"Maggots," he spat out the shaking word. "It was my brain deducing before I was consciously aware of it."

He tugged the test results from his back pocket and stared a long moment. "The sleeping medication stimulated my parietal and occipital lobes, offering me a vision that registered on an instinctive level: death. When I analyzed you, I received the information in my visual cortex as a hallucination."

Sherlock shifted to his feet and kicked a different drawer in the cabinet of bodies. When the pain down his toes wasn't enough he kicked it again, until the name plate fell off.

"This is what you wanted?" Sherlock growled at Moriarty's unmoving form. "Hundreds of questions that will never have answers -- this was your inheritance? Why?"

Sherlock stopped moving, slowed the twitch of his fingertips and halted his breathing as his brain raced.

"No.... no, there's a way..." When his lungs ached, he took in a slow breath. "Brilliant mind leaving clues for another brilliant mind. You know how I work. You left me clues.... in here." He tapped the side of his own head. "Locked away. You really did plan for everything..."

As if in a daze, he slid the stool back where it belonged and pushed Moriarty's drawer back in place. The nametag of some unfortunate person was still broken on the floor, but Sherlock's prerogative was to get out as soon as possible. Doubtless the cleaning company heard him and his racket.

\--

The flies, the buzzing, the maggots: all a sign of death, Sherlock contemplated as he returned to his flat.

The sleeping medications he already had on hand offered him visual stimuli in response to unconscious deductions. Logically speaking, Sherlock reasoned, larger doses of the same medication would offer longer, stronger visual representation of involuntary deductions. At the same time, the drugs would eliminate any existing distractions in his pursuit of answers.

It was dangerous to flood his system, yes, but the offer of answers to his questions made Sherlock more eager for results rather than cautious about safety. He still measured carefully -- he was no fool -- as something in the back of his mind wondered if Mrs. Hudson had realized yet about her missing prescriptions.

He scaled it 125% the size of the previous dose, mixed it in water and drank it.

He managed to get to the sitting room before he felt his vision darken. A moment of panic set in: he didn't want to be asleep. He needed to be conscious while this happened. 

Already on the floor, he scrambled for the nearest chair, but felt it topple over in his hands. He needed a pad, paper, maybe something painful to keep him awake. He desperately scrambled to remember his questions as his thought process snagged, skipped, and stopped.

\--

Sherlock snapped his eyes open and his brain struggled to reboot.

The too-bright walls of the sitting room seemed to blur and shake. Clear amidst the chaos sat Moriarty, his hands folded in his lap. He wore a serene look on his face and gestured to the free chair - John’s chair, which had returned to an upright position.

Sherlock grasped the arm of the chair with sweaty palms and fell into the seat. He stared at Moriarty, taking in how well-presented and clean the other man looked: as if he just came from the tailor’s.

Sherlock sweated through his pyjamas and fell short on breath. He rubbed at his blotchy face and tried to will the room to stop shifting.

“I had so many questions, you know,” Sherlock said when he felt confident enough to speak.

Moriarty was silent, though he wore a patient smile.

“So many questions and you didn’t give me the chance to confirm them.”

Moriarty gestured around the room. “We have all the time in the world now,” he said, missing the characteristic playful tone. “Ask me anything.”

“Why Morstan? Why trust him?”

“A man who loses everything has nothing left to lose. He was the perfect little military dog who always listened to orders even if he didn't like them.”

“He still had attachments: his daughter.”

“His dying daughter,” Moriarty corrected. “It was easy enough to convince him she was dead. Then, he had no morals left to stick to.”

Sherlock rubbed at his face as the haze stretched his vision, giving clownish proportions to Moriarty’s strangely calm face.

“You have more questions,” Moriarty said.

He did, but he had trouble remembering most of them.

“Do you think you're succeeding?” Sherlock finally asked. “Turning me into you. Have you succeeded?”

“This process, like everything in life, takes time. You’ve got the right start, breaking into St. Bart's. But you’ve been far kinder in your life than I was in mine, so the change requires patience.”

Sherlock felt he should have drudged up some kind of alarm in response to that. Instead, he felt relaxed.

“I could always kill myself,” Sherlock said, smirking.

“Yes, that would prevent you from venturing further down this path. But I think you’re more interested in watching the transformation.”

Sherlock’s gaze wandered along the corners of the walls as if by their own will, tracing the startling depth of the wallpaper pattern.

"Did you mean to die in that tunnel?" Sherlock's tongue felt too big for his mouth as he spoke.

Moriarty's expression changed as he raised a cartoonishly large eyebrow. "You think I made a mistake? Miscalculated?" He leaned forward, leering at Sherlock. "How little you expect of me."

"Then why death? Why something so final?"

"Death is... simply a change of pace."

A piercing wail sounded through the room, beating against Sherlock’s temples. He winced and clutched his head.  
  


Moriarty smiled vaguely before he held up a finger and reached into his pocket. “Phone call,” he said brightly and pressed the mobile to his ear. “Yes? Yes, of course. Wonderful. That’s actually, absolutely…. Wonderful.”

Moriarty stood to leave and the room swirled darker, as though paint were being tossed into this canvas. He said something, but it was muffled to Sherlock’s ears.

Moriarty said it again. “I have business to attend to.”

Sherlock jolted awake in a cold sweat, on the floor of his sitting room. He was curled up in the fetal position; the entire back of his shirt was soaked. He smelled the drugs on his body and felt his vision blur and swirl as he tried to sit up.

“Phone,” he gasped. He grabbed at the carpet and struggled to pull himself to his knees. 

“Phone. His phone.” His own voice was too loud to his ears, but he didn’t want to risk losing this thought. He needed it fresh after the drug-induced haze. Why hadn’t he left pen and paper available?

\--

11:00 P.M.: the energy of New Scotland Yard had nearly finished winding down. There were only a few employees around, finishing reports or processing paperwork. They lost the will to scramble: it was late and they weren't bound to get any sleep regardless of how quickly they worked. A few remaining stragglers chatted with one another as they filed paperwork.

On the fifth floor, a freshly showered and smartly dressed Sherlock Holmes made his way out of the elevators and straight towards Lestrade's office. He carried himself like he had important business, and the fact that his keycard worked at all hours made him feel satisfactorily self-important.

Lestrade's office door was closed, the lights turned off. No one was looking at him, so Sherlock turned the handle.

Locked. Old-fashioned key system, not a numbered pad or an access card. He bit his lip and searched for an alternate route to his destination. He raised his head and saw a young woman watching him.

She was calculating the decision of whether or not to speak to Sherlock as she carried on a conversation with a coworker. She had been working in New Scotland yard for the last 8 months. She wore a short wool skirt, her mother's from the '70's, and wasn't an officer, graduated from college two years ago, hoping to be an administrative -- no, executive assistant. Had trouble with the job market and fell back into the old filing-paperwork routine that paid her just enough to buy lunch every other day and to pay rent to her parents. She was a woman who still slept with a teddy bear at night: insecure about the future.

The man she was speaking to was on the same level as her, but fiscally better off. He'd just had his shoes shined yesterday, his shirt and pants came from a high-end clothing shop and though his glasses had thick, block-like frames, they were within the modern fashion trend and thus rather expensive. He'd gotten a haircut... last week, got them regularly from a stylist, not a barber. And as he spoke, this looked to Sherlock, nodded his head, and waved his hand in dismissal.

The woman smiled and nodded, biting at her bottom lip. Her eyes ran over invisible calculations: she was coming into some money right about… now. She clutched the wrist strap where she wore her key card, and found an excuse to leave for the night in a hurry.

As the man approached Sherlock, the entire floor fell silent. Two more straggling employees tuned in to their computers and didn't make a sound.

"Ah, Mr. Holmes, I have that file you're looking for," the man began and extended his hand. "I'm Benny Edwards."

Sherlock's eyes lingered on the hand: greasy with a bit of sweat. With how confident Benny was around his female coworker, he was noticeably agitated now. Nervous, excited, pleased, even. Scared, but with a touch of reverence.

"File?" Sherlock squinted at the other man. "Did Lestrade tell you I was coming?" His gaze shifted, trying to pull clues from the empty air. 

Benny laughed like it was a joke. Then, he stopped short. "Er, yes, sir. It's for the Adair case, right?"

"Adair?" Sherlock murmured.

"It's right over on this desk. Can I just say, it's a pleasure to meet you, sir?" Benny guided Sherlock to the desk that used to belong to Donovan. All of the belongings were gone, but the name plate remained. Stacked on the desk was a file on Ronald Adair.

Sherlock only worked on cold cases. Adair's case had been closed half a year ago, when Sherlock confronted Sebastian Morstan, Adair’s killer, in the abandoned construction site. The arrests were made.

Sherlock raised his hand and gave the same dismissive signal Benny had used on his coworker. Benny tucked his head down and quickly made his way down the hall.

He opened the file, but the entire manila folder slid off, revealing another folder underneath. 

"M., James." He opened this file. Inside sat Moriarty's mobile phone in an evidence bag, along with the police paperwork on Moriarty’s death in the tube, his hair sample, dental records, etc.

Sherlock moved to put the files back in the cabinet. As he did so, he slipped the mobile up his sleeve, then made his way out.

\--

He brought the phone back to his flat and took it out once he was safely in his bedroom, with the door locked behind himself. No Mrs. Hudson, no surprise visits from John, no phone calls from Lestrade.

Sherlock flipped the phone in his hand and stared at it. The weight -- like a brick -- was surprising given its relatively small size. It was a new model, expensive, updated, barely six months old. Moriarty liked his technology, probably one of the few thrilled he enjoyed in an otherwise “boring” existence.

He stared at the phone at several angles. The password had been revealed in court: 47338. I-see-u.

He tapped the voicemail app. 120 missed voice messages. Moriarty had prioritized voice mail by paying for a larger inbox. Not only did he avoid in-person meetings, it was easier to feel like a rock star when everyone needed you but no one saw you.

Sherlock scrolled across the phone until he found an e-mail app. It was bursting to capacity with new messages: thousands of them. He glanced through the subjects. Most were updates on current statuses of "projects," but there were many requests.

The first one that stood out was from a Sultan. "My affair has become so publicized. I need to take time to clear my head and get away from the press. If I go on vacation, they follow me and it will look bad. Please, make me disappear for a few weeks."

Sherlock switched back over to voicemail. It asked for another password. Sherlock tried four different word combinations: mind, got-u, burn, fire. None of them worked.

He scrunched his face and tried to think of where Moriarty's inspiration lay for this passcode. It was bound to be a four-letter word that Sherlock was familiar with. Moriarty had all but served this phone on platter to him. Sherlock was meant to access this voice mail.

It had to be a code he could guess.

 _"You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out_ ," Sherlock sang under his breath as he searched past the gunshots and bloodshed to the first line of this song.

" _Slip inside the eye of your mind_ ," he sighed out. "S-L-I-P. 7-5-4-7."

It was correct. The voice messages began playing in Sherlock's ear.

The first message was the sound of breathing, and one footstep. The last time he got this message, it was two footsteps. “One step closer,” Sherlock murmured.

The next voice message was from the CFO of a big company. "They just aren't respecting me. Make them miss me. I was told you could do anything. Stage a kidnapping. THEN we'll see how this company manages without me."

Connections were already forming in Sherlock's brain: disguise the Sultan, send him to England to kidnap the CFO. But how to stage the operation?

The next call was from a millionaire in the midst of a terrible divorce. "I can't afford to pay my ex-husband's alimony. If I cut out 5 million from my bank account, I'll be just under that earning bracket where I'll only have to pay half as much. Then, once this divorce is over in 3 months, I'll want the money back. A cut of it is yours."

If he used the 5 million to send the Sultan and CFO to an expensive vacation, private, away from any members of the press, he could charge them and the millionaire each 2 million. On top of that, he'd demand ransom for the CFO in the form of another five hundred thousand and wind up with a lovely cut for himself.

"Easy," Sherlock whispered to himself as laughter bubbled in the back of his throat. "It's all so easy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How's Sherlock's fall from grace? Everybody excited?
> 
> In the meantime, I watched the first two episodes of the real series 3 (which are AMAZING). I've been recording all the weird similarities between the real thing and my fanfiction. The list is surprisingly long.


	5. Chapter 5

One week, four days since Sherlock found Moriarty's phone: that was when he realized he was being watched.

It was far from subtle, the swell in the number of people who walked along Baker Street, the increased number of patrons at Speedy's despite its unappetizing menu, and the way people avoided looking straight at Sherlock when they passed him, as though they were under strict orders.

And it just so happened that the wiring came loose in the overhead kitchen light, and it just so happened that Mrs. Hudson thought it wiser to call a professional, who just so happened to be a real professional, and not Peter, who'd been doing all the misnamed "repairs" around the flat for the past 3 months.

Honestly, if Mycroft wanted it known that he'd paid off the whole block to spy on Sherlock, he could've put up a billboard with his eyes and enormous forehead on it. As if any of this could make the younger Holmes brother reconsider his recent actions. Mycroft dealt in information, and yet knew so little about his brother.

Sherlock, ever the defiant child, continued doing business as usual. But he made certain to place the calls and e-mails while directly under the supervision of the hidden cameras. He always flicked a smile at the bookshelf, the mantelpiece, the top of the refrigerator, or his credenza when he was done making exchanges. His wording was vague, his e-mails unspecific, but he'd learned the names of people who had specialties and always assigned them to tasks they were most suited towards.

His little business was more than profiting: enormous sums of money were exchanged with ease, the majority of which landed in several bank accounts under Moriarty's name. Sherlock had those bank numbers, the passwords, the keys to the safe deposit boxes. Moriarty didn't have a key that could open any door: with his connections, every door was already open.

Sherlock's mind was abuzz with constant connections, possibilities, problems and their resolutions. He didn't eat, hardly slept, and hadn't suffered a headache in nearly two weeks. He felt above mortality: he was the CPU of a machine that compressed problems and crunched out solutions.

Each time Mrs. Hudson tried to speak to him, each time his phone buzzed with a call from Lestrade or John, Sherlock ignored them.

One late night, Mrs. Hudson whispered on the phone with Peter about how Sherlock didn't even acknowledge she was there. About how she went around her own house feeling invisible.

That was two days ago, and it was the last time she'd spoken about Sherlock.

Lestrade stopped trying to call five days ago. His last voice message was utterly disgusted, though from the tone in his voice the Detective Inspector still didn't know about Sherlock's new hobby.

John hadn't stopped calling. Twice a day now, morning and night. He always wished Sherlock a good morning with a forced bright tone, before asking him to call. And he always wished him a good evening with an exhausted tone, while he reminded Sherlock that he said he'd answer his phone any time.

Sherlock hadn't heard a word from Molly.

That is, until she showed up, unannounced, at his flat one week and six days since he began his life of crime.

When she walked in, she looked straight to the bookshelf, then glanced to the mantelpiece and the refrigerator, as if she’d been the one who bugged his house.

Sherlock, who sat at the desk with five laptops open, forced a false greeting. "Mycroft ordered an intervention? Adorable."

Molly made no noise when she held up her hand and Sherlock, despite himself, fell silent. She was listening for something, and bit her lip as she concentrated.

After a moment, she nodded to herself.

"Let's go," she said and moved down the stairs. She waited at the landing between flights.

Sherlock stared after her, considering. If he went, anything could happen. If he didn't go, nothing would happen.

After barely a moment’s consideration, he followed her down the stairs.

\--

Twelve blocks away from Baker Street, Sherlock followed her through the door of the pub’s distinctive, dimly-lit interior. The wood paneling on the walls and floors gave it the impression of a place that disliked company. Three people were in the interior: two sitting at opposite ends of the bar and one standing against the far-off wall, nursing a glass.

Molly dragged Sherlock up to the counter. “An appletini,” she said and left a fiver on the table.

“It’s midday,” Sherlock said, squinting at her.

She held her neck straight, her gaze unwavering to the far wall. The glass was left in front of her without a word. She grabbed Sherlock’s arm and dragged him, and her drink, to a corner booth.

They were barely seated before she took three enormous gulps of the unnatural green liquid, draining two-thirds of her glass.

The nervous twitch of her right ring finger on the glass, her barely suppressed adrenaline could almost be heard running through her body. Her lip-chewing and rampant blinking made for a person rapidly fighting for control.

“This was the place Jim took me on our first date,” she said, and wheezed out an uncomfortable laugh: a symptom of the girl she was. 

“This is a date?” The nervousness, the drinking, were beginning to come together.

“No, heavens,” she sighed and gave a more mature laugh. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Not now.” She took a more delicate sip of her drink. 

He looked around, taking in the sight. “You've taken me out of Baker Street..." he began.

"Mycroft's got the entire flat bugged, people paid off to track your every movement, and the government monitoring your computers. If I want to talk to you, I had to take you somewhere safe."

"This is safe?" Sherlock scoffed.

"It's significant. _Everything_ Jim did was significant." She hesitated, but the expression on Sherlock's face didn't change. “Even the hair product he used, Dumb Blonde… I didn’t think anything of it at the time - except, well that it was an embarrassing product name. But he kept it at eye level in the medicine cabinet in my flat, so it would stare me down. Mock me.” 

"But you're not blond," Sherlock said.

"And I'm not dumb. Thanks for saying..." she muttered. She clutched her glass more tightly. “I’ve had three years to think over his actions. Every little word he said - it was all a game to him and he loved throwing hints everywhere that people wouldn’t look.”

Sherlock’s phone buzzed: right pocket. His personal phone, not his business phone. He ignored it.

“How have you come to this conclusion?” Sherlock asked. 

“By watching you.” She pressed her lips into a thin line. “You and he are, erm, well, alike in ways.”

“So you’ve brought me here to convince me to avoid his dark path? I’d like to see you stop me.”

“No,” she said softly. He drew himself up and watched her. “I made you a promise, two and a half years ago, to keep you safe. If you want to solve crimes or commit them, that’s not up to me, so long as you’re safe.”

“If you don’t stop me, you’ll be aiding me.”

“I’ve been secretary to one of the most important members Parliament for two years now,” she said, turning her gaze to her now empty glass. “I’ve learned by now that there are three kinds of people: those that make laws, those that follow laws, and those that break them. And not one does more good than the other.”

He finally glanced down at his mobile. John had called, later than the usual time.

Sherlock smirked and turned off his phone’s screen.

“You can’t very well go back to Mycroft now,” Sherlock said. “You wear guilt on your face like last decade’s fashion trend.”

She winced. “That was, um…”

“I’ll need you to take out all the money from your bank account.”

“Where do you want me to put it?”

“Another bank. An international one.” He had his hands pressed together under his chin, inciting thoughts.

“Shall I pack a bag?” She straightened her neck, kept her gaze level.

“Don’t bother going back to your flat. I’ll mail your items to you.”

She took a sharp breath, but kept her voice mostly steady. “Where are you sending me?”

“You claim to be the expert on Moriarty,” he said, toying with the thought: little Molly, the consulting criminal’s forensic expert. “I’m sending you to the places he went to before he died. He has business attachments in those areas that I haven’t explored yet.”

“Am I going alone?” she asked, fingers tensing around the glass of her drink.

“Yes. If you’re to help me,” Sherlock began, “you can’t go back to Mycroft. He’ll pick up any inconsistencies. He’s better than me.”

“I know.” She frowned at a far-off painting of a crying clown. “I thought about taking data from his computer. But then, I think he’d know it. And I wouldn’t know what to take anyway.”

“What about your own convictions? You’ll try to cast away everything just for me?” he scoffed.

“I already have.”

“There’s no turning back from this.”

Molly shook her head. “I’ll support your decision on how you live your life. If it were up to me, two years ago, I'd have... wanted us married with two beautiful children.” Her face reddened.

Sherlock looked away. "Appalling."

"Horrifying," she agreed with a shiver. "My ideal isn't necessarily what's right for you. So if you want to solve crimes or if you want to make them, I’m going to help you.”

Sherlock smirked. “Mycroft’s biggest mistake was in thinking that he could control you, when your loyalty has always been solely with me."

\--

“Why don't we go for a walk?” Doctors never meant well when they said that. Dr. Hillson led John to the waiting area of the hospital. John hovered around the cramped room, rubbing his hands and biting his lips.

“She’s breathing on her own,” Dr. Hillson said. 

“I already know, yes,” the side of John’s mouth twitched.

“It’s very good news, but…”

Dr. Hillson pulled off his glasses to clean them, which all bespectacled doctors did when they were about to impart bad news. It was either a distraction, or a way to ensure that they didn’t have to look at the recipient’s face when the words came out.

He narrowed his eyes on John. “She’s too weak to move. We can’t send her home.”

John slowly released a shaking breath.

“Her heart rate is-“

“Under thirty, I know.” John’s voice broke, so he cleared his throat. “I’ve been… erm…”

“Monitoring?” Dr. Hillson supplied. “It’s perfectly normal behavior. My wife was in hospital for kidney stones and I kept checking her pulse, even with the machines around. I think we all go a little mad, us doctors.”

John’s lips flickered to a fake smile and he kept his gaze low.

“What I want you aware of is that Mary might never go home.” The doctor finally put his glasses on, forcing himself to confront John’s expression. “Her organs are beginning to shut down: her heart, her lungs, her liver…”

“I know,” John whispered. “I just… I thought there was more time.”

“Well, maybe you’ll be the one to cure kidney disease, eh?” Doctor Hillson offered a calculated smile, which John found more frustrating than assuring. “We can never lose hope.”

“Thanks,” John spat, “I… just, I’d like to go back to my wife now.”

He made his way down the hall and back to the brightly lit room with the repetitive wallpaper.

Mary lay, propped up in bed. Her face still had creases where the oxygen mask had been. Her bony frame was skeletal under the hospital gown.

One open eye landed on him, and she parted dried, chapped lips to speak. “Sorry I threw the alarm clock at you.” Her voice was parched and hollow.

John breathed a chuckle that he didn’t feel. “We can always buy a new one. And I haven’t obtained any long-term alarm clock-related injuries.”

A chuckle sounded like a crackle of air from her lungs, but she coughed until her voice began to clear.

John took the chair beside her bed and reached for her hand. Both of her arms had tubes and wires sticking out, feeding fluids into an out of her, testing her heart rate and blood pressure.

“We can’t bring you home,” he murmured.

She closed her eye and nodded. “I figured. It's okay. I mean, it's not great. But it's okay."

He choked on his breath. “Can I let you in on a secret?” 

“Only if it’s a real juicy one,” she murmured, opening both eyes with the effort of opening an old window. 

He gripped her hand the way he did back when they applied for a marriage license, nearly six months ago. Mary was especially pale that day and kept glancing to John as if waiting for him to call it off as a prank.

He remembered the thrill that came with the chance of ruining his life. That day, he held her hand tightly as he signed the paperwork, then quickly let go so she could sign hers.

This time, he didn’t let go.

“I’m scared,” his voice came out a tight whisper. “I’m scared because I don’t know what to do, but I know what happens next. All this medical training and it only makes me more aware of how hopeless this situation is.”

She smiled at him and the lines on her face tightened as she bit her lip. Tears pearled at the corners of her eyes.

“Wow, I just…” she started, then laughed, a nervous, quiet, grateful sound. “There isn’t anything you can do. And let me tell you, I’m scared out of my mind.”

He breathed a relieved chuckle and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, painfully like it was a competition.

“The doctors gave me ten years after the transplants failed,” she said. “I knew this was going to happen, but I still feel so unprepared.”

“I do too,” he admitted. “Medical school, Afghanistan, and I still couldn’t be ready for everything you brought into my life.” 

He moved to sit on the bed, careful of the many tubes and wires, so he could hold her. She pressed her face to his shoulder and managed to bump his chin hard enough for his ears to ring.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t prepared to have somebody so committed when I needed company the most,” she said.

“I wasn’t prepared to have you by my side as my wife for half a year, brightening my day and… throwing alarm clocks at me.”

She gripped his shirt and dug her forehead against his chin.

“And now you’ve been taken away,” he murmured. “Put in hospital…”

“It had to be this way,” she said. “Our quiet neighborhood couldn’t handle our combined level of badass. We’re too big for this place.”

John snorted. “Too big for this planet, more like.”

“Too big for this life.” 

John swallowed around the lump in his throat as he watched her head start to droop. “You are definitely… definitely too brilliant for this life.”

Her breathing slowed. Her heart rate monitor suggested she was asleep, but then she spoke.

“You are the kindest person I’ve ever had in my life.”

“That’s a shame,” he murmured.

“No. You’re a hero. You’re my hero.”

\--

"My brother is posing a greater risk to himself and others," Mycroft said from the mahogany-colored comfort of his office.

There were no guest chairs available, so Lestrade stood with his hands in his pockets, leaning his weight on his better knee. He wanted to pace around the room. He wasn't sure he was allowed.

Lestrade opened his mouth to speak, but Mycroft interrupted him.

"Once again, I am asking you to intervene."

"I knew he was on drugs," Lestrade said. "I thought if I yelled at him some, I could snap him out of it."

Mycroft straightened against his chair, the back of which was stretched to form an enormous alcove around his head.

"I'm afraid the situation is far more grave than a series of sleeping medications he stole from his landlord's cabinets. Sherlock has taken up the mantle of Moriarty's organization, heading it. The crimes are high-profile enough to stir concerns with some of our international allies."

Lestrade dug the toes of his shoes deeper against the perfectly polished wooden floors. "Sherlock's not a criminal, sir. It doesn't suit him."

"I'm afraid, detective, the only reason my brother turned to _solving_ crimes was because it was favorable to a drug-induced coma. You saw use for his mind, as I knew you would, and saw fit to provide him with entertainment. Now that amusement has run dry for him, and he's seeking a greater high. As they say, once a drug-addict, always a--"

"You're wrong." The entire room stopped at Lestrade's words. He even heard Anthea stir from the darkened doorway.

The look of contempt Mycroft's face usually made shifted to something amused, which was far worse.

"Do tell me, Detective, how I am wrong."

"If he was going to get bored of solving crimes, he'd have switched to breaking the law ages ago."

"Ah, that's where your influence counts. You guided him away from the drugs, towards something he enjoyed more. Indebted to you, he continued the pursuit of justice. Mrs. Hudson's influence kept him as well behaved as can be imagined. John's influence, even more so. But without any of you in this equation for two years and the series of months he spent in prison, he's been able to pull away from the ties that bound him to the law. Simply put, _you’re_ wrong.”

Lestrade couldn't argue. He didn't have a way to explain that Sherlock had a depth of kindness to him that even he wasn't aware of. But, Lestrade worried, maybe that was his own imagination.

"What d'you need me to do?" Lestrade asked.

"Detain him. At any cost. Sherlock is going to grow more obsessed with crime the longer he's submerged in it. Take him out of there and put him behind bars."

"Sir... at least let him explain himself."

Mycroft leaned over his desk, watching Lestrade with eyes so like Sherlock's in expression.

"If it will soothe your doubts, you may interrogate him as you see fit. But once we've confirmed that he's a liar and a thief, I will put him where he is safely out of harm's way."

Lestrade let out his held breath. "Where's he now?"

Mycroft gestured to Anthea, who Lestrade forgot was there.

"Give her your mobile. She'll program the GPS with Sherlock's last known coordinates. My driver will take you there."

Lestrade tugged his phone out of his pocket and wiped the greasy screen on his slacks before handing it to her perfectly manicured hands.

"Last known coordinates?" Lestrade asked. "You mean you've lost him?"

Anthea typed casually into the phone, as if surfing the web or catching up on Faceboook.

"Regrettably, part of your duty will be to find him."

"Yes, sir." 

Anthea handed his phone back and Lestrade hesitated. "Just... one more thing, sir." He looked Anthea over before turning back to Mycroft. "Where's Molly?"

Mycroft's smile was pure frustration as it took over the edges of his face. "The situation is more dire than you realize. Time is of the essence, Detective."

\--

The weather was bitterly cold and damp. The rain was far from eager about coming down, so the clouds sat rather petulantly on the ground. It was poised to move by tomorrow morning, said the weathermen, but it didn’t look ready to pack its bags just yet.

Anthea, swathed in a scarf and expensive-looking wool coat, not entirely unlike Sherlock’s, stood by the open door as she texted on Lestrade’s phone.

He snatched the mobile out of her hands as he climbed into the nearby street car – black, vaguely egg-shaped, and inconspicuous enough for travel – and nodded to the driver. The man tipped his chin in response.

“I’ve sent the directions to your driver,” Anthea said as she poked her perfect head through the open window. “He knows what to do.” 

With London’s usual traffic, the drive took an extra fifteen minutes. But they only went a little further past the outskirts of town.

"What the hell?" Lestrade muttered as they pulled over to an open field with highway stretching into the distance. Both he and his driver pulled out to scan the area. There was nothing -- literally nothing -- around. It may as well have been a gravesite.

He moved through the thick, fog-like air as his eyes scanned as far ahead as he could see. His foot hit something that definitely seemed to be a rock: it skittered across the damp grass. But it didn't have quite the weight he was expecting.

Lestrade got down on his hands and knees and moved closer to the area where the object landed. His fingers felt along the wet dirt, tracing sharply-angled stones until his palm rested against something smooth and slick.

He picked it up: it was a mobile phone. He turned it on and looked at it from a few angles before realization sunk in.

"Aw, shit," he muttered and then he felt a rock hit him upside the head.

\--

He awoke to screeching pain from his left temple. A thick fabric was over his head, scraping his new injury, and his hands were bound to the chair he sat in. Curse words streamed from his mouth like fire once he remembered how to breathe.

"Good to see you as well, detective," came that obnoxiously deep voice.

"Yeah, fuck you," Lestrade muttered. "Draw me out to an empty field. Pay off the driver to beat the shit outta me."

"Didn't pay the driver," Sherlock corrected. "He's mine."

"No, he's Mycroft's."

" _No_ , he's _mine_."

When those words hit Lestrade, like that rock, he fell silent. The sack was pulled off from over his head and Lestrade winced against the incredibly bright fluorescent lights. The room was piled high with boxes, most of which had found their way off the shelves that lined every inch of the walls. The room would have been expansive, if not for the intensity of the clutter. 

The nearest box, currently being used as a makeshift footrest for the former consulting detective, was broken at one edge, with something like a portrait of Margaret Thatcher peeking out.

Lestrade knew at once that this was a temporary place of business, barely broken into, never made comfortable. He squinted at the portrait, to try to determine where he was, until Sherlock shifted posture, dragging the detective’s gaze back to him.

"You'll bring a message to my dear brother," Sherlock carried on, flanked on both sides by stern-looking men. One of them looked familiar through the vague haze of Lestrade's vision. "Tell him that I do so love a chase, but he'll never catch me."

Lestrade squinted at that familiar man, whose posture fumbled a moment. His vision finally stopped swirling.

"Dimmock? Oh, bloody hell," Lestrade muttered. DI Dimmock didn't meet Lestrade's eyes. "You were on probation. You were going to come back, and you've chosen this shit?"

As Lestrade's clearing vision wandered over Dimmock's head, he realized the portrait of Margaret Thatcher was actually a caricature with a wide set grin. As his eyes shifted to the corners he noticed more snippets of comics and strips of animated film peeking out of old boxes.

Sherlock stepped out from behind his boxes and grabbed at Lestrade's short hair. The DI winced, his jaw hanging open as the pain by his temple pulsed.

"I suggest involving yourself no further, _detective_ ," Sherlock sneered, "if you value your life."

He turned to his small army of guards. "Get him out of my sight."

The itchy sack went back on over Lestrade's head. Several sets of arms heaved him upright. He knew he was being led through a door, then a hall, then into a car, likely in a garage. He paid attention to the sounds of the motor. Small engine. Compact car. Few people there to keep watch on him.

"Sorry Greg." Dimmock's voice, whispering, beside him. He felt the curve of metal press against his side, heavy. A gun.

"Why the fuck..." Lestrade began.

"I was never on probation," he admitted. "Chief fired me. I needed the money; I have kids."

"He lied?" Lestrade's mind worked into overdrive. "Just because you used Sherlock on a couple cases?"

"Mr. Holmes is the one who found me, offered me work. I was desperate."

"I'm beginning to feel rather bloody set up. Chief fired you for working with Sherlock, so you turned to crime and started working for Sherlock. When were you fired?"

"Six months ago," Dimmock said.

"So before all this shit. Before Moriarty officially came back. There's a lot of fuckery going on here."

The car came to a screeching halt. Dimmock lowered his gaze as two burly men threw open Lestrade's door and dragged the DI out of the car. At the side of the highway, they tossed Lestrade down a grassy plain.

His skin scraped rough grass. A couple of rocks slammed into his ribs.

Before Lestrade could regain his sense of balance, he watched the headlights disappear as the car screeched away.

He was on wet grass, at the side of the highway. There were no trees, just pavement slightly above him. London's lights were a dot in the distance.

Lestrade climbed to his feet and doubled-over in pain. He clutched his head and his stomach in turns. Woozy, he went back down on his knees and gripped the grass until the world finally began to slow.

He reasoned about his location. He was by a highway. If he went the direction he came from, he'd eventually get to London or at least a large city.

Lestrade picked himself back up, grunted at the pain, and started walking.

\--

"It's an emergency. It's about Sherlock. I'm on my way to you." _Click._

That was the rapid message Lestrade spouted into John's ear from an unfamiliar number when he picked up the phone. It was 7 A.M. and John hadn't slept a wink. 

Mary woke up choking in the night. There was a rush of nurses and arguing doctors, the whirr of machines. And in the midst of this chaos, John couldn't say a word.

They set Mary up with an oxygen mask. There was talk of a more intrusive procedure to get the air into her lungs. John wasn't given any options. He wouldn’t have wanted to make any decisions.

Mary had been asleep ever since, occasionally stirring to mumble something completely incoherent.

And now Lestrade had awful news about Sherlock. John wasn't sure he could handle any more excitement in his life.

But before he could make himself doze or even consider breakfast, the DI showed up, looking disheveled and dirty. There was literally a twig sticking out the back of his coat and marks like blood or mud on his knees.

"You look actually insane," John said as the DI rushed past him, carrying an enormous poster.

"I am. A bit." Lestrade spread what was apparently a glossy map of London across the wall and, with no regard for hospital policy, held it in place with a series of pushpins. He looked to the door and hollered: "Get the hell in here!"

John hadn't noticed how the scraggly figure stood in the shadow of the doorway. Anderson, in his own unique form of disheveled, had grown a beard and smelled as though he'd forgotten how to shower. Dark circles hung under his eyes like hammocks and his skin had a greasy, yellow hue.

"No, definitely not," John went for the door. "I don't want him here."

"And I don't want to be here," Anderson said as his gaze dragged around the room.

"The way I see it, none of us has any choice. Get _in here_." Lestrade grabbed Anderson's arm and tugged, then just as quickly gave a hearty wince.

"Is that swelling in your ribcage? You need to--" Anderson began.

"SIDDOWN," Lestrade barked and both Anderson and John followed orders before their brains could process. "I been to see Sherlock and I got a million thoughts running in my head. I need you, John, because you know Sherlock better than anybody. And I need Anderson because he sees connections the way nobody else does, _almost_ like Sherlock."

"Yes, thank you," Anderson snorted. "A genius prodigy, top in all my classes, and I have the title of being _almost_ like Sherlock Holmes the consulting criminal."

"He's no criminal," John growled.

"He is now."

"You're both wrong," Lestrade snapped. "He's not a criminal, he's a villain. He's playing a role, exaggerating everything, like he's on some kids' TV show. But he's done it to keep me safe."

Anderson pinched his lips together as he stared at Lestrade with absolute frustration.

John, meanwhile, went over Lestrade's words. "Go on, then," he said.

"Sherlock told me to give Mycroft a message, something about enjoying the chase, but never the capture. Empty, useless words, like a cartoon character with a twisty moustache. If Sherlock really wanted to give Mycroft a message, he'd have shot me in the head and dumped my body somewhere easy to find. No, he made a show of being evil and then threw me in a ditch at the side of a major highway so I could crawl my way out and find my way home. I think he wants me to find him again."

John finally spoke up. "But how are we supposed to find him?"

"It's why I have you two here. If he's trying to be a villain, he's got to have something that gives him away, like a pattern or a flaw. It's built into the system."

"This isn't an episode of _Scooby Doo_ where we pull off his mask and reveal he's been Moriarty all along," Anderson intoned.

"But why isn't it?" Lestrade said, wrapping an arm carefully around his own torso as excitement built inside himself. "He'd want some kind of big reveal. Something dramatic. Whether it's to do with Moriarty or Sherlock or some other criminal, we're receiving clues."

Everyone was silent a moment. Then Anderson said: "You lot can be Shaggy and Scooby."

"You're Scooby," Lestrade said to Anderson.

"You're hairy enough to be," John added. 

"Jinkies," Anderson muttered. "I still think you're looking too deeply into this. Sherlock's been careless since the day we met him. He's sloppy and conceited."

"No..." John said and rather than arguing, he paused for consideration. "No, Sherlock's never been careless. He's.... he's dramatic and conceited, I'll give you that. But everything he does is.... it's so precise, so carefully planned. It doesn't necessarily make sense to us, but the way he sits and the way he sniffs evidence, it's all for a reason."

Lestrade's face spread with something like respect. Anderson, for once, was out of words.

Lestrade flattened his hand on the glossy map of London, and proceeded to push more pins into locations.

"The 'Believe in Sherlock Holmes' group is still trying to help. Shelly's found pictures of Sherlock circulating through the 'Net -- recent pictures, from the last week. The locations have been The Guards Museum, Churchill War Rooms, London Transport Museum, Pollock's Toy Museum, The Handel House Museum and the Florence Nightingale Museum. When his people captured me, I'm pretty dead certain they held me in the Cartoon Museum. It was hard to make out much of anything in that light, but I'm sure I saw a caricature of Margaret Thatcher sticking out of a box.”

"Speaking of cartoon villains..." Anderson mumbled under his breath.

"That exhibit's about to go up, so it's in storage in the basement," Lestrade went on, undeterred.

"Doesn't it..." John started, then stopped himself. "No, I... I just thought the pattern made a sort of shape." 

"A shape?" Lestrade scrutinized the map. He dug out a bent pen from his back pocket and chewed at the already bitten end.

"Sort of like a figure eight, but it's incomplete. If we pick a point that would complete the figure eight, maybe that's where Sherlock would be." All three men tilted their heads as they stared at the map.

"It's not a figure eight," Anderson said. "It's a complete Odal."

"A what?" John asked.

"An Odal. Ancient runes, sort of a letter 'O.'" He moved to approach the map and traced the figure with his finger. "It's shaped with an x at the bottom, and a connected peak at the top. He's drawn us an Odal."

"Runes.... Runes, isn't that what the Chinatown smugglers are using now?" Lestrade murmured, tapping the side of his head with the bitten end of his pen.

"Yes. We think the code has to do with the reconstructed Proto-Germanic translation--"

"English," Lestrade interrupted.

Anderson rolled his eyes, so much like how Donovan once did. Lestrade caught himself gritting his teeth.

"As I was saying, the Proto-Germanic name, Opalan, means 'inheritance' or 'estate.' It could be referring to all the money or goods he's stolen."

"The bottom half of the Odal looks sort of like an X, right?" John asked. "Does that mean anything?"

Anderson ticked his finger along the lines of the figure. "Well, an X-shaped rune is a Gyfu. It means 'gift' or 'generosity.'"

"Sherlock's giving away his stolen money," John murmured. "The first person to figure out the code is the winner." He moved to the map, disregarding Anderson's claim on it. "Isn't there another museum there, in the middle of the 'X'?"

"The Household Cavalry Museum," Anderson said, his breath pinched with anticipation. "It's got to be his base of operations."

John rubbed his hands together awkwardly and shifted his weight to his other foot. "You two go in, rescue him..."

"We'd need an army," Anderson pointed out. "If he's doing crime, he's got people on his side."

"No army," Lestrade's voice was tight. "Okay, so he's got tons of people on his side. Even some of Mycroft's. Wouldn't be surprised if Anthea's only back to spy on Sherlock's behalf. Besides that, any word of this gets back to Mycroft, and he'll have no choice but to send Sherlock straight back to prison. But if we're sending in an army, none of us get our questions answered and everything goes to shit."

Lestrade attempted to sit in John's chair, but intense pain marked his features as he tried to bend.

"It's a broken rib," Anderson said as he descended upon the DI. "You need a doctor."

"Fancy that, I'm in a hospital," Lestrade said and smacked Anderon's worried hands away. The DI leaned against the chair as he looked John in the eye. "Listen, no army. No team. Sherlock isn't willing to take my life, so he'd definitely keep you safe, John. You have to reason with him."

The former doctor, whose concentration had been stuck on the side of the shirt where the DI's ribcage was swollen, shifted through a series of confused and distressed expressions. His gaze finally turned to Mary: helpless, unable to eat or breathe on her own. John shuddered to realize that with all these tubes and machines surrounding her, she looked more like an object than a person. Guilt crept around him, weighing on his shoulders, because he wanted now to be far away from this hospital, from his duty, from his wife, when she needed someone the most.

Lestrade caught John’s eye. "I'll watch her," he said. "I won't leave her side, I swear on my honor."

John's hands curled slowly into fists. He felt his blood surge with adrenaline.

"I'll stay as well," Anderson said, startling John and Lestrade. Anderson looked over his boss. "Someone has to make sure you stay out of trouble... sir." The harsh look on Lestrade's face lessened to something that pinched with affection. Anderson looked, for the moment, less world-weary.

John gave a curt nod, turned, and moved out of the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE SCOOBY-DOO SCENE MADE ME REALIZE THAT I'D COMPLETELY LOST CONTROL OF MY CHARACTERS. EVERY TIME I TRIED TO REWRITE IT, SCOOBY-DOO FOUND ITS WAY INTO THE CONVERSATION AGAIN. GAH.
> 
> I had to split Chapter 5 into two parts because it's altogether nearly 12,000 words, which is twice the number of words of all the previous chapters.


	6. Chapter 6

The Household Cavalry Museum was an enormous living museum at the center of the hub of London's streets. John, who hadn't showered, hadn't shaved, and couldn't remember where he'd left his mobile phone, made his way inside the building with the certainty afforded to trained military men. 

It was barely 8 and employees were arriving for the morning training. According to the directions outside, the opening ceremony started at 11. People would be flocking in before then. John had to hurry.

Past lit rows of ancient uniforms and exaggerated headgear, beyond plaques with years dating back to the 1600's, John snooped his way towards a back hall, hoping he'd bump into a clue.

Instead, he quite literally bumped into a uniformed soldier.

The man -- taller, younger, lankier -- scrutinized John a long moment.

"Sorry, do you have a reservation to be here at this hour?" he asked, shifting his hat to scratch at his shaved head.

"Sorry, yes, er, friend of mine's here. His birthday. Wanted to surprise him."

"What's his name?" the man asked.

John struggled. "Well, he's really more a behind-the-scenes man. I-I don't know if you'd know him. Erm..."

"Captain?" came a voice of a young man nearby. "Captain Watson, is that you?"

"I- oh..." John turned to the dark face that was vaguely familiar somewhere in the back of his mind.

The young man recognized the look of confusion on his face. He pointed to himself. "Private Stapleton. Chris. Chris Stapleton. I was with Captain DeMarco's group right before you left -- the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers. We were stationed--"

"Right!" Realization set in mixed with relief. "Private Stapleton." John said the name to try to set it in with his memory.

"After I finished my tour of duty, I came back and decided to do this whole museum bit." He turned to the other soldier. "I'll lead him where he needs to be, Mark, keep him out of trouble and all that. Shouldn't you be catching up with morning practice?"

Mark forced a smile and a slight nod before he headed to the central area of the grounds.

Private Stapleton turned back to John, watching him as if reliving an old memory. "When you got injured, I thought it was the last I'd see of you." He led John deeper into the building.

John made an uncomfortable sound that was almost a chuckle. "I wasn't really sure where my life was going after that point as well."

"But nah, you've made yourself famous. You solved crimes. Sought out action. It's all very inspiring, Captain."

John hesitated as he watched the other man speak. "Erm... you... seem to know quite a lot about me these days."

"Who doesn't?" Private Stapleton said with a chuckle. "Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. There's stories written about you. Not to mention your blog."

John halted his pace. "But that's.... it's been years."

"Not for everyone." Private Stapleton raised dark brown eyes as John felt various sets of hands clamp onto his arms, over his mouth, and over his eyes. He was dragged to the nearest room with a locked door. Immediately, they bound him to a chair.

John finally remembered to fight, to bite, to shake his head violently just as the three sets of hands moved off him. He was in a small room, dimly lit: some sort of storage closet that had been converted to office space.

Across from him, sitting behind a grandiose glass desk, Sherlock had his hands folded in front of his face.

"First he sends Lestrade and now you. I can't tell if Mycroft is more desperate or deluded," came that warm, rich tone of Sherlock's voice.

"Not Mycroft's decision. I came on my own." He looked over the face of his best friend. Sherlock was entirely self-assured, more obnoxiously than usual.

Sherlock snorted. "Then Mycroft put it into action, at least. Where's your backup? Tracking device? Perhaps it's the GPS on your phone."

"Don't have my phone," John said, keeping his voice and gaze steady as he stared at that punchable face.

Sherlock’s eyes flickered up to the men around him. "Search him."

It was demeaning, to have people rummaging through the pockets of his clothes. John leveled a glare at Sherlock through the whole ordeal, while Sherlock watched with idle interest.

"There is no backup," John said again as Sherlock's minions retracted from around him. He recognized the diminutive stature of Dimmock before he really placed that face. 

"Of course there's backup," Sherlock scoffed.

"No, I mean, there _really isn't backup_. I'm it. I'm here to try to talk you out of this. You've gone off your trolley and I'm going to smack some sense into you."

"Off my trolley?" Sherlock's nose crinkled as he giggled, a nasal sound that was buried deep in his sinuses, and he rose to his feet. "Do you not see it? How much my brilliance has enhanced this organization?"

"You don't like crime. You've never liked crime. You like puzzles."

"That was the child I used to be. I'm finally realizing my potential." Sherlock fidgeted with two things on his desk before John realized that they were mobile phones. "We have to go."

John struggled against his restraints. "Wait! Sherlock!"

But the consulting criminal avoided looking anywhere near John's direction as he barked orders to his associates.

"You there, Donovan--"

"Dimmock, sir," the former DI corrected exhaustedly, as if not for the first time.

"Whatever. Get the helicopter ready." Sherlock was harried, combing his fingers through his hair as he paced the office.

"Sir," Dimmock's voice was strained. "With all due respect, the plan's fallen through."

"Details don’t matter," Sherlock growled. "It will work. All my plans work."

"It's too dangerous."

"Listen to what he's saying," John piped in.

"Then stay here!" Sherlock barked. "Watch John. Has someone called for the bloody helicopter?" He slammed his way through the doors, into the hall, and the majority of his entourage reluctantly followed.

Dimmock stared after the door as it swung shut. John opened his mouth to speak, to plead, to beg -- something.

Instead, Dimmock leaned in towards the former doctoer. "Right then," he sighed and went to untie John's binds.

"Wh... what are you...?" John began.

"I reckon this has gone on long enough. I knew I was falling in with a bad crowd, but I didn't think he was worse off than Moriarty. Turns out he's off his nutter."

"You're.... were you spying on them?"

"Nothing that grandiose. I figured if I gathered intel, I'd have a stake at getting my job back. Probably not, but maybe I'd at least still do some good. Sort of backfired as I helped him commit crimes, though. I don't know if I'm more the criminal or the hero, but I do know someone's gotta stop him."

Once the binds were loose, John flew to his feet and rubbed his weathered wrists. "Where is he?"

"The roof has a flat spot just wide enough to land a helicopter, though you'd have to be mad or an ace pilot. That's where he's kept it. We gotta stop him."

"He didn't listen to me."

"He don't listen to me either. But something about him changed when you talked to him. We got to at least try." Dimmock checked that the hall was clear and led John to the roof entrance.

\--

They moved up six flights of stairs to the roof where the flat asphalt was being used as a temporary helicopter landing pad.

The wind whipped at Dimmock's trench coat. John felt like he was being slapped by the propellers as he pushed onwards. 

Dimmock tugged open the cabin door and John, feeling rather like a soldier coming out of the barracks, went straight inside.

Sherlock's two body guards pointed their guns to John's head. Sherlock held up his hand to stall them.

"You imagine me as some sort of hero, John. I've never been a hero." His deep voice carried over the roar of the engines.

"Of course you have. You solve crimes. You save people. You've just gotten worse since.... since I haven't been around."

"I only ever solved them for the thrill. Now I feel nothing."

"You're so full of regret that you've burnt yourself out. For Christ's sake, will you please stop with all of this?" 

"It's too late," Sherlock shouted, and for a moment his eyes seemed to wander with uncertainty. "You need to go.”

John grabbed Sherlock’s stupid, annoying scarf as it fluttered in the wind of the helicopter. “I have one question - just one question for you before you throw me out.” He took a good look at the other man: the face more gaunt, the eyes more wildly animated than when John first met him. “Two years ago, when you faked your death and you needed someone, why not me?”

“You mean ‘Why Molly’?” Sherlock replied. He pulled John's hands away from his scarf as hair batted at the sides of his face. 

“I actually let myself think that you trusted me.”

“Would you have let me disappear? Fake my death, change my name and leave your life?”

“Never.”

“That’s why I didn’t trust you.”

“We could’ve found a way around it.”

“You’re too optimistic, John.”

"There's still a way out of this," John insisted, hollering over the roar of propellers. "You don't have to keep doing this."

Sherlock looked him square in the eye. His overly-dilated pupils gave John the vision of a wounded animal. Water swam around his bottom lids and Sherlock squinted up at his former flat mate.

"I don't want to stop," Sherlock hissed and his lips cracked into a painful grin.

"You are so full of shit."

"You've accomplished nothing except for aggravating me." Sherlock took him by the shoulder and pushed him towards the door. “Go, John. “

John imagined himself punching out Sherlock: knocking him unconscious. Instead, he let him go.

He slid out of the cabin and covered his head with his jacket, which whipped viciously at him, while he moved to the shelter of the roof entrance.

"What're you doing?" Dimmock shouted, his high voice barely audible.

"Leave him!" 

"You can't be serious!" Dimmock turned like he might go towards the helicopter just as it lifted off into the air. The two men covered their heads as they watched its propellers glisten in the midmorning light. The helicopter turned and hovered above the buildings. 

Close, too close, something tapped against the hull of the machine. The propellers stopped and the craft fell straight to the road below.

John watched, the whole time thinking of Sherlock on the roof of St. Bart's. 

The "NO" was trapped in the back of his throat. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

"Oh, shit. Holy shit..." Dimmock was cursing viciously. He grabbed at John. "Do something. Do SOMETHING!"

John felt weak all down his arms and legs. "I don't have my phone..." he said, his voice somewhere distant.

 _"This is my letter_ ," Sherlock's words ran in his head again.

John turned to the stairs and made his way desperately down them. He missed a step, and wound up rolling onto his side before he scrambled upward and made his way down again.

Six flights. It had to be six bloody flights.

He was panting and cursing as he made his way down finally to the lobby. He dashed out into the street. He didn't need a cab -- he could smell the wreckage from here.

He ran with everything he had and finally arrived at the scene. The police hadn't even arrived yet. Maybe no one called.

Part of the aircraft was on fire. John shoved hot metal out of his way and felt the skin on his hands bubble painfully. He kicked another few pieces until he found a pale arm.

He shoved more twisted metal away from a pile that never seemed to end, as bystanders watched without helping.

At the sight of that curly black hair, he thought of the blood that pooled around Sherlock's head after falling from the roof. 

"Please," he caught himself whispering. The heat was making him dizzy. He coughed against the smoke as the flames began to die down.

He heaved the edge of what he was sure was a propeller and tried to physically move Sherlock's body. He heard a crunch and stopped, desperately scrambling for his pulse.

He wasn't feeling anything. His fingertips were numb, the skin already peeling.

"CALL AN AMBULANCE," he hollered openly to the crowd that was forming. "Somebody! Anybody!"

His own pulse was pounding in his head. He couldn't hear. Couldn't see.

\--

Heart rate at 70 BPM. The smell of cleaning chemicals, sterile cloth, and ammonia stung his nostrils.

Sherlock cracked open an eye and settled his gaze on the painful white dots that danced in front of his eyes. His vision cleared enough to show the hospital room. The lighting overhead was more dim than he expected. He turned his neck to look outside and winced with the sharp pain that climbed up the side of his body into his neck, and stabbed at his brain.

"You're awake." John's voice was haggard, deep as though he had just been sleeping.

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply, but his throat was too dry to produce sound.

"Guess it's too late to kill you now," John went on.

Sherlock tried to move his hand, but pain climbed its way sharply through his arm. Limited mobility, warm, slightly damp: they had his arm in a cast.

John pushed the cup of into his good hand.

Three hearty gulps later and Sherlock was prepared to speak. "I received word that the helicopter would be shot down, so I took a large portion of sleeping medications to--"

"Shut up," John ground out.

"It's rather clever, really. Accident victims who are asleep are--"

"Shut up. Shut up. I don't care. I don't CARE!"

Sherlock stopped trying to speak. His gaze finally settled on the other man, taking in the disheveled form, the grown-in stubble, the dark bags under his eyes. The clothes were from, judging by the number of creases, two days ago, which was coincidentally the last time John showered.

"Are we done with the drugs?" John demanded. "The crime?"

Sherlock forced a bright tone. "Where are my mobiles?"

"I have both of them so you won't do anything stupid."

"I'll be needing them."

"I will break both your bloody legs--" John began. "When I saw that helicopter go down, I thought you were.... thought you were..." he coughed painfully into his hand and couldn't find the breath to continue.

"I knew there would be an attempt on my life. I tried to leave the clues with Lestrade so he'd communicate them to my brother, who would easily solve the riddle involving the Odal. I acted like a caricature of a villain so the good detective would connect my actions with the Cartoon Museum. Yet I didn't expect Lestrade to send you in, alone. I think that was rather rude of him."

John held his face and, by the way the vein tensed on his hand, looked prepared to punch something. 

"You let the helicopter go down," John murmured.

"Yes, when there weren't reinforcements, I had to improvise. The others were expendable. I had to preserve my own life, so I took a much larger dose of narcotic sleeping medication. Instinct causes us to tense on impact, which is why sober people are injured much worse than drunk or unconscious people in traffic accidents. The narcotics made my muscles relax and, yes, I lost consciousness so I'd survive the--"

"Three days, you've been unconscious."

"Yes, well, I couldn't carefully measure--"

"It was..." John's breathing was uneven. His whitening hands gripped the railing of the hospital bed. "It was just like seeing you fall from the roof, only this time it was real. You hung on by a thread -- a thread, you enormous idiot. Your chances of survival that first day were minimal and I... I kept having to split my time between you and Mary because she was almost worse off than you--"

"She _was_?" Sherlock repeated. "Past-tense?"

"Lestrade's watching her right now. She gets better by little bits, and worse by enormous leaps. She's not... really conscious anymore."

There was a too-familiar guitar solo that came muffled from John's pocket. His eyebrows knit as he tugged out the phone, only to hear the words: " _So Sally can wait/she knows it's too late_..."

Dread climbed from John's bad shoulder to his fingertips.

"This is your..." John began.

"Ah, that's for me," Sherlock said simply and held out his good hand for his phone.

"You chose this? As your ring tone? Are you completely deranged now?"

" _As we're walking on by/My soul slides away..."_ the phone went on.

"Yes now give me my phone. This is important, John."

"You're completely, disgustingly out of your mind--"

"My _phone_ , John!"

Sherlock tried to reach for it, but the unexpectedly intense pain of bruised ribs left him stuck.

John answered the phone instead.

"Who's this?" he demanded. He didn't have a plan in place. He had no idea what to do except scream at someone.

"Oh..." Molly's voice.

John's throat tightened. "So this is... That's how it is then."

She breathed quietly into the phone. "Is he, um... Can I speak to him?"

All the fight left him. John found himself handing the phone to Sherlock with shaking fingers. He'd just have to listen... have to watch Sherlock work... And then he'd testify as a witness, put Sherlock in a prison or a psychiatric facility. It couldn't get any worse after this point.

"Molly," Sherlock purred into the phone. 

John could just barely hear her voice through the receiver. "I've the spreadsheet with all the names of all the leaders in Moriarty's ring. I've sort of greased.... er, rubbed elbows? That doesn't sound right."

"Good work. Forward the database to me. Then pack your things and come straight home. Text me your arrival time, I'll have a car waiting."

"Home? S-should I take the first flight?" she asked.

"Yes. I think we're done pretending to do crime now, aren't we?"

"Oh, I... yes..." she breathed.

"Pr-pretending?" John repeated.

Sherlock hung up. "Of course I was pretending. Do you think I'd fall so low as to become a petty criminal? It's distressingly dull to solve the problems of stupid people. And so much money being thrown around... A waste of time."

"You... pretended..."

"In order to take down Moriarty's ring, of course. He left his entire empire to me as his inheritance. Frankly, it's the most tedious gift I've ever received. _Solving_ crimes is so much more exciting than _making_ them. Perhaps if he'd realized this, he'd still be alive today."

John stared at his hands. He nodded even before thoughts could form and connect.

"So you.... pretended... " John began, twisting his head against the twitch of his neck.

"The crime ring exists in layers, with connections all over the world. I'm prepared to expose some of the police and government workers under Moriarty's employ, but there is so much more web to unravel. I started by gathering intel. Now the overt side of my operation will begin by visiting these locations and exposing the corruption."

"You'll be travelling again."

"If Mycroft doesn't stop me, yes."

John thought of their argument in the helicopter. He watched his own fingertips twitch. "I was wrong,” he started. “I'd have come, you know. Two years ago, to Norway. I'd have come if you’d asked."

"I know," Sherlock said. 

John raised his head and stared at his friend. "You've always known?"

"Yes. But you'd have been a constant reminder of all I left behind in London. I couldn't hide properly with that temptation, and I couldn't put you in that much danger. They weren't looking for Molly and Mycroft kept her safe."

"Even now, I'd come with you," John's voice croaked as he spoke. "If that meant you couldn't disappear from my life again."

His words hung heavy in his own mind. He thought of his financial responsibilities -- his home, his debt -- to avoid thinking about Mary, alone in the hospital room. Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade would eventually stop visiting her. 

"I know," Sherlock said. He shrugged one shoulder and winced at the pain that slid like a dagger down his spine. "Although, perhaps it would be better if I start by working from home. London offers a variety of corrupt politicians and police, which I'm sure the public is eager to hear about."

"You mean you'd go back to Baker Street? Wouldn't it be a bit... I don't know, boring after all this excitement?"

"I doubt you'd let me get bored," Sherlock said.

"You're... offering for me to help?"

Sherlock scoffed. "It's hardly an offer. Simply, you'll find a way to be there, regardless of how much you might get in the way. You've proven yourself in that regard."

"You've spent the last seven months trying to convince me not to help you."

"I expect it will take far less time to convince you to return. You and danger have a way of always finding each other. I'm rather keen to watch."

\--

One week later, John adjusted the bandages on his hands. The blisters were healed enough that they could handle pressure. But his ability to grip things hadn't quite come back. He stared at the stack of plates on the floor and began wondering if he could lift them with his elbows, when his phone rang.

Mycroft.

John considered letting it ring, letting Mycroft stew with whatever self-important drivel he needed to share. Maybe the elder Holmes brother would leave an awkward voice message.

But then again, nothing proved quite as entertaining as telling Mycroft he was wrong. The promise of an "I-Told-You-So" was enough to make John answer the phone.

"Ah, I trust I haven't called at an inconvenient time?" Mycroft intoned.

John looked at all the open boxes that had taken up residence in his house. His books were down from the shelves, his television set was askew on its stand. Clothes were scattered in disarray, some wrinkled in attempted folds while the others were bunched up and shoved in boxes. Anything that wasn't immediately necessary was crammed into the master bedroom, and there was a moving van waiting outside.

"Not any more than usual, no," John replied.

"I've called to congratulate you on your return to the flat in Baker Street. I believe your influence on my brother will be most positive."

Grinning from the shock of those words, John relaxed onto his couch and toyed with a tuft of stuffing that was sticking out of the arm.

"Calling to congratulate me? Bit of a shift. Whatever happened to keeping me away from Sherlock?"

Mycroft began to answer, but John stopped him.

"Let me use my incredible powers of deduction to predict how this conversation is going to go," John began. "You're going to give me a grave warning about how your brother is a madman and a criminal. I'll ignore you. He'll prove you wrong again, and reveal even _more_ corrupt members of Parliament to the public. Then I'll carry on with my life and live with the satisfaction that I was right and you were wrong."

"Right and wrong?" Mycroft laughed and it was such a bitter sound that John relished in it. "I wasn't aware we were in competition. But by all means, name one instance in which I incorrectly predicted my brother's actions."

"You said he was a criminal -- that he'd become Moriarty," worry began to set in.

"And was I wrong?"

"He faked it. He faked the whole... crime-thing just to tear down Moriarty's web. He'd been planning it that way since the start."

"Since which 'start'? Since Moriarty's triumphant return? Since his unexpected death? Or do you mean perhaps, since you confronted Sherlock face-to-face?"

John hesitated. "How d'you mean?"

"My brother's plan was rather intricate, wasn't it? If even one aspect went awry, he'd have exposed himself to the largest working criminal organization in the world. I daresay that if none of these trained professionals saw through his facade, then it was never there to begin with."

John gritted his teeth. "You can't really think he wanted to be a criminal. He said himself it was boring."

"Yes, he says that now. But you, yourself, are aware that my brother's faculties were not all in check when he took up the mantle, so to speak. Moriarty final act was to cloud Sherlock's judgment, by shocking him with Donovan's death and then giving him a time-limit that implicated his own life, and the lives of others. The series of sleeping medications muffled his moral compass. All that was left was to enjoy the thrill of solving other peoples' problems in new and inventive ways. It was a painkiller in itself."

"Wh... why wouldn't he just stick to crime, then?"

John could practically hear Mycroft smirking. "As I said earlier, your influence should prove most positive."

There was a knock at the door. John struggled with his phone a moment.

"I have to go," he said and hurriedly hung up. He opened the door to Molly.

"Er... oh..." John began and cleared his throat for lack of better words. Mycroft's words made him twitchy, and Molly's presence made for an awkward development.

To her credit, Molly kept a still facial expression. "Can I come in?" she asked.

"Yes! Sorry. You're the only one who's actually come to help pack," he said. She wore scuffed jeans and he raised an eyebrow at her gardening gloves. "You realize we won't be pulling weeds?"

"It prevents splinters," she explained and moved into the sitting room. "Where's Lestrade? Things must be a madhouse at Scotland Yard, but you said on Facebook he was keen to help."

"Everything's mad with Chief Murdock under investigation and Carter out and Anderson and Lestrade on desk work. They've had to call in detectives from other precincts. But Lestrade didn't let himself properly heal before moving sixty pounds of boxes at work. He's back in the cast with ten weeks of no heavy lifting, so he's volunteered to watch Mary."

"How's she doing?" Molly's tone was careful. She, more used to dealing with the deceased than the terminally ill, and wasn't sure how sympathetic she should try to be. The awkwardness reminded John of Sherlock.

"Not worse," he said. "Not better. Hasn't been conscious in over a week, though she mumbles to herself sometimes. I..." he took a deep breath. "I don't think she'd miss this house. I worried for a bit that she might, but I think she'd prefer that I'm not alone right now."

Molly folded her gloved hands in front of herself. "Shall I change the subject?" she asked.

"Abruptly, please."

"Speaking of healing, how're your hands?"

"Less numb, which just means when I wake up in the night with my fists clenched, it's like roaring pain," he said. "Still stiff, though. I can't get a proper grip on things."

"I'll take a look at them."

He shook his head. "You realize I'm a doctor, too, yes?"

"Sorry," she laughed and it had a bitter edge of nervousness. "Just don't know what to do with myself. How can I help?"

"Furniture will be taken by the men with a van. The plates and cups are being donated... I... think..." He gnawed on his lower lip as he thought about Sherlock's mismatched plateware, the dust that filled them for years, the doubtless science experiments Sherlock performed on them. "Okay, okay... maybe just pack them and I'll bring them to the flat."

"Wrap them in newspaper?" she asked, finding the roll.

"Erm... yeah..." he said, having bought the paper for his own reading. "That's probably wise."

John sandwiched books between his palms and slid them carefully into the empty box in front of him. Busy silence fell over them, which would have been quite comfortable -- reminiscent of the lab at St. Bart's -- except for the nagging question at the back of John's mind.

"Mind if I ask you...?" he began.

"Sure, yeah."

"How did you know, before any of us really, that Sherlock wasn't a real criminal? I mean, he actually committed actual crimes and made connections and sent you out to those other countries to talk to real crime lords. How did you know he wasn't... serious about it?"

Molly pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. "Did you have doubts?" she asked.

"I... yes."

"Me too," she whispered. "The difference is that you tried to stop him. But I let him do it. That's the horrible difference between us, John."

John fumbled with the next book and froze. "Are you serious? You went out to those... those dangerous places, thinking that he may well be doing crime now?"

"I had a wild hope, certainly," she said and slid a carefully wrapped cup into her box. "I hoped someone might come along and snap him out of it, or that he might laugh and say it was a prank. I just didn't want him hurting himself."

"Why not you? You could've been the one to convince him."

She laughed. It was not at all a happy sound. "Me? I can't convince anyone of anything; especially not Sherlock. He only started noticing I existed when he really needed me." She folded another sheet of newspaper around a plate and stared ahead with a twitch of a wry smirk. "D'you see? I helped him commit crimes because that meant he needed me. I'm so shallow."

She slid the plate into the box, but her hand was shaking.

"It's not shallow if you want him safe," John said. "But I won't stand for you calling him a criminal. You honestly, right now, you sound like Mycroft." He crammed his hands into fists and wincing at the unfamiliar feel of tiny scars on his fingertips. "And that's not a compliment."

"It never is," she murmured.

"Like he would've seriously devoted himself to becoming a criminal." The next book he grabbed slid from his hand, landing in the box with a weighty _THUNK_. "Ridiculous."

"If you have to wonder what could draw Sherlock to crime, then consider what drew Mycroft to the law."

"No." John shook his head and moved to his knees to start organizing the haphazard mess of books in his box. "They couldn't be any more different. They-- they hate each other."

"They love each other. They're brothers. They just drive each other mad."

"I just-- I don't trust a word out of Mycroft's mouth. And I can't believe you do."

"Mycroft's usually right about Sherlock. It's why I agreed to work for him." There was a sudden shift to Molly's tone. "I mean, for every bit that Sherlock is impossible, Mycroft is ten times worse. He doesn't know the first thing about treating someone like a human being and... and d'you know what? I'm glad I don't have to work for him anymore."

"You...Come again?" John stopped compiling his books, while Molly folded another newspaper over a plate that shook in her hands. "You're not working for him?"

"Of course," she murmured, carefully placing the plate in the box and blowing a strand of hair from her face. She bit her lip and forced a smile. "I'm a liability. I mean, I did sort of manipulate him. He only likes it the other way around."

"And he fired you?" John climbed to his feet and felt a throb at his left knee.

"Not quite like that, no. I haven't heard from him in weeks, which means he's found a replacement. Probably hired Anthea back, though she's only going to sneak information past him and Facebook her girlfriend all day."

"Girlfriend?" John shook himself from his thought. "No. Wrong question. You... you said yourself you aided Sherlock to keep him safe. You didn't actually commit any real crimes, right?"

"That's not what matters to Mycroft. What he wants is to surround himself with predictable people. He didn't calculate that I'd turn on him, so now I'm out of a job."

"He tried to control Sherlock by putting him in prison. Then he tried to control your every action."

"Every little push he aimed at Sherlock," she began, "every time he forced him up the mountains or into a cage, Sherlock took his time before pushing back. That's their relationship."

"That's sick. Small wonder Sherlock is so..." he tried gesturing with his hands, "... the way he is."

She actually let out a real laugh and John caught himself chuckling along. It was a relief for both of them to move away from the serious weight piled on their shoulders.

"Yes, well, Sherlock's only gotten more... more _like how he is_ , but having people around will do him good." She hesitated as the nervousness crept back into the conversation. "If you weren't moving in now, I'd be the one considering taking the flat."

John reached for his laptop and stopped short. He didn't quite know what to say, but the confusion on his face led to her explaining.

"I don't have a job. I can't pay for my flat, which Sherlock's criminal activities were covering the cost of." She shrugged repeatedly as she spoke. "Now that Sherlock doesn't have a use for me, he's going to forget about me. So if I moved in… if I was just around... he couldn’t forget about me."

"Talk to Mrs. H," John said, his voice more firm than he really expected. She blinked at him. "Seriously. There's another room in the basement -- it's awful, actually. But it'd be very cheap and--"

Molly held up her hands and shook her head. "Let's just work on moving you for now, okay?"

"Right."

"And... and also thank you."

"For what?" he asked as he struggled with his laptop.

She came over and took it from his sore hands. "Thank you for... for believing in Sherlock."

"I've always believed in Sherlock. Even if I'm the last person on earth who does, I'll believe in Sherlock."

"Thank you." She gently lowered his laptop into the box.

\--

Sherlock stood by the window of his sitting room, his violin at his feet, as he watched the street below.

"He's supposed to be here..." Sherlock muttered.

"He probably got held up," Mrs. Hudson said, perched delicately in John's chair.

"Surely he'd call," Sherlock snapped. He scratched the back of his head frantically with the end of his violin bow. He wrenched himself away from the window, only to turn right back around and stare out it.

"You know how London traffic can be."

Sherlock finally began to pace. "Is everything in place?" he demanded.

"Of course," Mrs. Hudson's voice was a delicate chuckle. "I don't see why you're making such a fuss--"

"Tea?"

"Warming downstairs."

"Cream?"

"Cream and sugar are downstairs on a tray."

"John doesn't take sugar in his tea."

Mrs. Hudson raised an eyebrow. "He won't be the only one drinking it." Her expression softened. "Honestly, dear, everything will be fine. You'll see."

Sherlock pressed his lips together. "You'd best go check on the tea."

Mrs. Hudson gave a knowing smile and approached him with an air of confidentiality. "It'll be fine," she said with a wink. “You'll see."

As she made her way down the stairs, there came a knock at the door. Sherlock yanked his violin up into his hands and began playing as if he was too absorbed in his music to notice. He played until he heard the creak of the floorboards behind him.

"Ah, John," Sherlock turned with a bright flicker of a smile and set his violin down. "Feel free to sit."

John unloaded a box that was nearly the size of him. Molly tried to steady her box against her knee, and managed to drop it unceremoniously to the floor. The loud rattle of china made her jump. She stared around at them awkwardly.

"I made tea," Sherlock said without pause for concern and dragged John to the nearest chair as he dashed towards the entry hall.

"Tea? I, er, have more boxes," John said, scrunching his nose as he looked at Molly.

"Hi, yes," she called out. "I'm here as well."

Mrs. Hudson came up the stairs, balancing a tray of piping hot tea, cream and sugar, all of which she set on the kitchen counter.

"Mugs? Where are the mugs?" Sherlock hissed.

"I thought you had the mugs," she whispered back.

"Why would I have the mugs? You made the tea."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, I'll go downstairs and get mugs."

"It's too late," Sherlock's voice was a whisper that dove into bitter tones as he threw open the doors to his cabinet and pulled out a beaker. He looked in it and wiped at it with the edge of his sleeve before pouring tea and the exact right measurement of cream in.

"Here," Sherlock announced, bringing the beaker to John. "Tea."

John's eyebrows twitched as his lips threatened to part with laughter. He kept himself somewhat composed as he accepted the offering. "That's, er, very nice. But I did only just get here and the truck's rented by the hour. Are your hands shaking?"

Sherlock slipped his hands into his pockets. "How's the tea?" he insisted.

John took a careful sip of it. He looked at it from a few angles, wondering if his friend had poisoned him again. The taste seemed perfectly normal, though.

"Are you.... trying to impress me?" John asked.

"Well, if we're going to be flat mates, we've recently gone on, I would say, the wrong foot."

"Which was your doing."

"To protect you.”

"I understand that," John said.

"It's simply that... I don't want you thinking that maybe you've forgotten how to be my flat mate."

Mrs. Hudson and Molly, meanwhile, realized that staring silently was the least rewarding option. They busied themselves in the kitchen as Mrs. Hudson hunted the cabinets for a real mug and chatted lightly to Molly about what she takes in her tea.

John nodded slowly to himself. "Maybe I have forgotten," he said, taking a bigger sip of his tea. Sherlock's face seemed to tighten, as if bracing for impact. "But then we'll just figure it out. We'll figure out how to be flat mates again. We did rather well the first time."

Sherlock's lips curled into a genuine smile, different from the one he showed Molly in the prison's visitor's centre, different from any expression he showed Lestrade or Mrs. Hudson. It was an exact contract to the sneer he gave Moriarty. Sherlock smiled as though his every emotion were tangled into his face, and only the purest ones could be seen.

"We did, though, didn't we?" Sherlock asked.

John nodded to him. "Say hi to Molly."

"So I was thinking..." Molly wrung her hands as she spoke to Mrs. Hudson, "that if you know any sort of space available to rent on the cheap..."

Sherlock chose this time to swoop in and greet Molly with a kiss on the cheek.

"Oh, hullo," she chuckled. "Finally realized I was here?"

"You're always available to help me. If I expressed gratitude every day, you'd tire of me."

Mrs. Hudson smiled and patted Sherlock on the cheek, every bit his mother as his landlady.

"And of course there's space for you, love," she said to Molly. "The downstairs is a bit of a fixer-upper, but you've two lovely men here to help."

Molly gave a sheepish smirk. "You mean those two? I'm better off doing it myself, then."

"Downstairs?" Sherlock repeated, eyeing both of them as he tried to place the combination of awkwardness and gratitude he saw before him. "Are you moving?”

Molly shook her head and held up her hands. "Not anytime soon. We'll figure it out in bits. I don't want to overwhelm anyone and right now we're helping John move in."

"Finished my tea," John called. He dusted himself off as he moved to his feet. "So is everyone keen to carry boxes?"

Mrs. Hudson disappeared down the stairs, into the safety of her flat, faster than anyone could've given the old woman credit for. Sherlock turned back to his violin. Molly was about to admonish him, but John approached him warmly.

"Just this once won't kill you," he said to Sherlock. "You can lift the lighter things if you’re still healing.

Sherlock scoffed. "I suppose it's a welcome trade for a fresh start."

The three of them made it down the stairs with John at the front and Molly at the rear. Sherlock seemed content for the first time since he returned to Baker Street after those two long years abroad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end, folks. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> This was a journey that began in April 2012 and ended March 19th, 2014 -- so that's two years of my life, where I spent every weekday (and most weekends) writing. I'm really excited to see where my writing takes me next.
> 
> Theoretically, I'm going to put together a list of all the similarities between the real series 3 and my version of series 3. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.


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